The general director of "Metalist" Valery Hryga spoke about the personnel losses of the Kharkiv club.
Kucher and Krasnikov (photo: metalist.ua)— Krasnikov's departure is a big blow to Metalist. But his transfer, like the transfer of Oleksandr Kucher, is a joint decision of Oleksandr Yaroslavskyi and Yevhen Krasnikov.
You know that because of the war in the country, many enterprises of Alexander Yaroslavsky stopped and do not bring any income, but even in spite of this, he continues to support their workers' collectives. That's why it's incredibly difficult to finance Metalist to the extent that he did it before. Those funds that he allocates will not be enough for the performance of "Metalist" in the Premier League.
All these days, from the first day of the war, Evgeny Oleksiyovych and I were in Kharkiv at the Metalist stadium. I personally saw the tremendous amount of work he did and the number of options he worked through to save Metalist. After the unexpected departure of Jovyevich to Shakhtar, Dnipro-1 made an offer to Oleksandr Kucher and Yevgeny Krasnikov, while Dnipro-1 promised to pay $1 million for terminating the head coach's contract, but on the condition that along with the head coach, Evgeny Krasnikov.
The team was in Turkey all this time, now they have moved to Uzhhorod - all these are huge expenses. Plus, it is worth noting that the "Metalist" football academy was evacuated to Chernivtsi, where our students who did not go to Europe are now based together with the coaches.
You understand how expensive it is to live a thousand kilometers from your home, paying for hotels, fields, stadiums, food, moving and other things. In addition, we lost income from holding matches, selling paraphernalia in our chain of stores, and the advertising market was very weak. Therefore, no matter how harsh it may sound, the offer of "Dnipro-1" came as never before. Yes, Yevgeny Oleksiyovych left, Oleksandr Mykolayovych left, but "Metalist" remained with a complete team and coaching and administrative staff, with an academy that works in full.
We are not losing optimism, we have kept the backbone of the team and are preparing for the first game in the UPL. "Metalist" will live on and delight his fans. I consider all negative statements about Krasnikov and Kucher to be provocative - people simply do not understand how difficult a situation we find ourselves in. We live in hope and do everything to save "Metalist" before returning to Kharkiv, said Griga.
