Famous journalist Mykola Nesenyuk spoke about the resumption of the 2022/23 Ukrainian championship after the winter break.
"Today, at one o'clock in the afternoon, the Ukrainian football championship is to resume in Oleksandria. The same thing was supposed to happen on the same day in the same Oleksandria a year ago, but it didn't.
Now football life in Ukraine has resumed, which is certainly a positive thing. But only from the political side. As for the purely football component, we should be prepared to continue competitions that modern Ukraine has never known before. The most important thing in these competitions, that is, in the continuation of the championship in three leagues, is the very fact of their holding. Anything else will require great patience and tolerance from us.
We have experience of the summer and fall part of the championship. Back then, games were played anywhere and anytime, some matches were interrupted for different periods of time due to air raids, others were canceled altogether, and the dates of some of them are still unknown. It seemed like the championship was being organized by someone unknown. I do not know the name of a responsible person who could competently and exhaustively answer numerous questions about the championship. It seems that the team owners themselves agree among themselves when and where to play, and only then inform the "premier league", which is supposed to be holding the championship.
Sad to say, but there is a kind of murky atmosphere around the football championship, which is very necessary for the country, and it is quite possible that it could be abused to take a higher place. There will be no one to complain about these abuses - the Premier League does not actually exist, and the football association-federation that actually conducts the competition has been created such a swamp that you don't even want to approach it.
There is no need to talk about the level of football itself. What can I say when the undisputed leader of the Ukrainian championship cannot win twice in a season against a non-first-place team from Cyprus in the third-tier European Cup, and the second team of our championship is miraculously still in the European Cups solely due to luck and the will to win. And we can't blame the players and coaches for this level of their play - thank you for that!
Therefore, it is unlikely that we will see any decent level of football on the Ukrainian football arenas that are empty due to the war. There will be a lot of running around, a lot of fighting, disputes over referees and other attributes of our football that are still inherent in our country. When we switch TV channels to European championships, we will once again see that football in the German or Spanish championships looks like a different sport compared to football in the Ukrainian championship.
But this is our football spring. The one we have suffered for and deserve. So let's protect what is left of our football during the war. Let's support our teams as they are. Let's rejoice in their small and sometimes clumsy victories. Because as long as our football is alive, Ukraine is alive! For me personally, the most important thing is that this football spring of ours takes place! And then everything will be fine! Our football, like everything else, will survive and be reborn, bringing us all the joy of victories, albeit not very big ones. And bringing the main one closer