Mykola Neseniuk: "The owner of Kolos should think about it. And not only him"

Renowned journalist Mykola Nesenyuk talks about one of the problems of the Ukrainian championship with the current line-up of its participants.

"Watching the confident performances of the Kolos team from Kovalivka in the Ukrainian championship, I finally remembered where and when I had seen this before. It was in the late eighties of the last century. The leader of the then Georgian SSR, named Shevardnadze, decided to create a football team in his native district. He said it and it was done! A stadium with twenty thousand seats was quickly built in the district centre of Lanchkhuti, with a population of five thousand people, and players of the USSR's top league level were invited to join the local team.

By that time, the team's founder had been promoted to become the USSR's foreign minister. But the team was not neglected. And eventually, Guria from Lanchkhuti made it to the top league of the USSR championship! It should be noted that this was only possible because perestroika had just begun in the USSR and the laws and customs that had been the basis of previous life, including football, were almost no longer in force. As a result, the team from the Georgian district centre paid its players more than Dynamo Kyiv. Of course, this money was "black" and unaccounted for. And no one was afraid of being punished for it, as had happened before.

That Guria team was coached by Mykhailo Fomenko, a legendary footballer and later a famous coach. There were, of course, Ukrainian players there as well. Khlus, Yavorsky, Kvasnikov and others managed to play in Lanchhut. But the "magic" of this miracle centre worked only in the first Union League, where Guria defeated everyone and won the right to be promoted twice in four seasons.

For some reason, it didn't go further. After all, the top league was shown on TV and it was more difficult to score points using the methods known to everyone. That's why Guria finished its first and last season in the union elite in last place. But the very fact that a rural team made it to the top league was evidence that football in the USSR was already terminally ill at the time. Just like the USSR itself... Today, the Guria team from Lanchkhuti plays in the third (!) league of the Georgian championship and has no claim to anything.

Why did I mention this? Because this ancient story should teach us that a football team created in a village or district centre by gathering players from all over the world will not last long. As soon as the official or unofficial owner of this team is unable to pay the players brought in, this team will either disappear altogether or play in the lower leagues of amateur football somewhere. And the fact that there are already several such teams in the top division of the Ukrainian championship shows that not everything is normal in our championship.

I understand that we have not yet had enough rich people who are able to bring village teams to the top league. But what kind of championship is this when a top division team has virtually one fan? How can this championship be "sold" to television for decent money?

Don't think I'm against people spending money on football. But it is desirable to spend with a perspective. Not far from Kovalivka, which has less than two thousand inhabitants, there is Fastiv with a population of fifty thousand and Bila Tserkva with two hundred thousand. These towns already have stadiums that can accommodate spectators. A team of Kolos's calibre would definitely draw full stands there. But Kolos plays in their village for their owner and his friends and acquaintances.

You might say that this is not relevant nowadays - football matches are held without spectators because of the war. But the war will not last forever. The same cannot be said about empty stands, which may remain so even after the war. Why? Many people like this - there is no need for all the hassle of selling tickets, creating amenities, maintaining order...

People do not think that football for one person with empty stands does not last long. Where is the Temp team from Shepetivka, which played in the top league in the nineties? Where is the team from Okhtyrka, which played there in the two thousandth? What happened to the teams from Lipova Dolyna, Holovkivka and other Ukrainian villages where rich men used to set up "football clubs" and enter them into official competitions? The same place as Guria from Lanchkhuti. So the owner of Kolos from Kovalivka should think about it. And not only him," Neseniuk wrote on his Facebook page.