A well-known soccer functionary and former president of Boryspil Borispol Igor Kovalevych commented on the abyss into which the Ukrainian soccer was thrown by its current leaders-corruptors.
Igor Kovalevich"A couple of days ago I was torn between two soccer games, Juventus vs. Inter and Barcelona vs. Real Madrid, switching channels all night long because I couldn't tear myself away from either of them.
I often go to Italian league matches, whether in Rome or Milan, Florence or Venice, Verona or Naples, and everywhere - full stands of stadiums, the incredible atmosphere at the stadium itself and of course the level of the game itself, not to mention the class of the players themselves.
And looking at all of this I remember with great sadness, as once a similar atmosphere prevailed in our stadiums. Whether it was Kiev or Odessa, Donetsk or Lviv, Kharkiv or Dnipropetrovsk.
From my early childhood, I, as the majority of Kiev boys, was crazy about soccer, adored my native Dynamo, looked my idols in the stadium and saw them off after the game. Living in my native Pechersk, I almost never missed a home match of my home and favorite team, both the double team at the stadium "Dynamo", and the next day the first team at the Republican stadium, both stadiums were almost at the same distance from my home, I had to walk to them no more than 20-30 minutes.
I first went to the reserve team games, like the majority of my peers. And not only them: even adults often followed our example, hopping the fence of the stadium in the park. And then, already engaged in the children's soccer section, for 10 kopek tickets, which we were given by our coaches before the matches.
Of course my favorite place at the stadium was the stand behind the gates under the scoreboard, where key players of Dynamo squad were always playing. I could not imagine with what great pleasure I spent this hour and a half in the stadium stands behind my idols, trying not to miss a single word or look of them, sometimes forgetting about the soccer.
The next day, I went down Shchorsa Street from Lesya Ukrainka Boulevard to the upper stadium, where now is the building of the Football Federation of Ukraine, and then down the asphalt path to the iron gate to the stadium itself, where buying tickets for 50 cents, I got to the stadium itself. Of course, no match for me went without sandwiches and sweets, of which there were innumerable around the stands (a sort of itinerant canteen). It was incredibly delicious and great!
And then there was the soccer itself. THE GAME! Incredible ATMOSPHERA in the stands, which were almost always packed to capacity at the USSR Cup matches. And that's 100,000 seats!
If I recall correctly, the smallest attendance at the Republican Stadium was at the Lokomotiv Moscow game - about 50,000, the others never drew less than 75,000. As for the games with Spartak Moscow and Dinamo Tbilisi, the full house was 100,000 and even more.
The fans were sitting on the steps between the rows and standing on the top of the lower tier behind the last row in the stands. And the stands themselves were filled to capacity!
And the soccer was of the highest class, especially when played by our favorite team, which at top speed from the first minute of the match just tore apart their rivals, whether it was the matches of the domestic championship or the European Cup. For any opponent coming to Kiev for a game, the main thing was to hold out and survive the first 20 minutes of the match, but very few people managed to do that in Kiev. Be it Spartak Moscow, Real Madrid or Barcelona.
That was FUTBOL! Those were the PLAYERS! That was the team!
And now... A miserable championship, empty stands (I mean not now, during the war, but before the war), and NO players! But with what crazy salaries and demands! And what is now going on in the Football Federation of Ukraine (Ukrainian Football Association - ed.).It's just awful. There has never been anything like that! It was unimaginable!
That's what big and bad money, which now swirls around our soccer, turns everything into. There is a horrible and crazy CORRUPTION in Ukrainian soccer. Where the former and current leaders of Ukrainian soccer have seized power in it with a dead grip. And there is absolutely not Ukrainian soccer and its development at stake here, but its budget itself, which today is about $ 500 000 000 dollars per year..." - wrote Kovalevich on his page on social network Facebook.
