Oleksandr Kucher: "To break everything in one game like that... So why play then? Maybe we shouldn't play at all?"

After his team's 1-2 defeat to Vorskla Poltava in the 28th round of the Ukrainian championship yesterday, Dnipro-1 head coach Oleksandr Kucher raised the issue of refereeing.

"Of course, the guys are upset now, because they played and gave their all, showed very good football today, but we were short of one goal.

And as for the penalty: first, in one episode, VAR said there was a violation of the rules, and at another moment VAR said there was no handball in the penalty area... So, where there is a penalty, where there is not - I do not understand anything. I remember when Vorskla played with someone, finished 2-2, and there, too, one of the opponents got the ball in the hand, so they awarded a penalty. But for some reason, we don't get penalties like that, and it's not the first time.

We had the same hand with Kryvbas when we lost 1-2, and then they didn't give a penalty to Kryvyi Rih. That is, 11-metre penalties are awarded for someone else, but not for us for some reason.

Maybe we need to put one more VAR on top of the other? It's not clear how they interpret the rules.

But I understand why Svatko was given a yellow card: there is our offside, he tells the referee about it and gets a fourth yellow card so that he misses the game against Shakhtar. These are understandable things that happen in our football. And this is how it turns out that the guys have been working all year, winning, and then to break everything in one game... So why play then? Maybe we shouldn't play at all?" said Kucher.