Football became an integral part of Kiev life in the early twentieth century. On the seventh of October 1911, representatives of the "Sports and Gymnastic Circle at the Polytechnic Institute" and the "German Gymnastic Society" held the founding meeting of the Kiev Football League, the highest body of the city's football.
Photo: ffk.kiev.uaIn the same year of 1911 the premier championship of the city was held in Kiev, which started on 14 October. The champion laurels were won by the Polytechnic team.
City competitions were gaining popularity, which required an increase in the number of referees. It was quite logical to perceive the emergence in 1913 of the Kiev Board of Football Referees - one of the first in the Russian Empire.
The formal reason was the holding of the First Russian Olympics in Kiev, which in its turn was included in the circle of events of the industrial exhibition of 1913. Symbolically, the central pavilions of the exhibition were located on the site of the present NSC Olimpiyskiy.
The competitions of the Olympiad were held on the "Sporty Pole" - the first such arena in Kiev, which had just been opened on Lukyanivka.
As reported in the newspaper "Kyivlyanin", on June 17 at the meeting of the Olympic Committee it was decided to form special commissions, whose members were to unify the rules of competition for each type of sports programme and to plan the principles of judges' work.
On the first August at the united meeting of all referee commissions each referee received a special Olympic badge "for unimpeded entrance to the competitions".
So, football referees of Kyiv united under the aegis of the specialised commission on the eve of the Olympics. Accordingly, the date of 1 August is considered to be the day of creation of the Kyiv Football Referees' Collegium.
For more than a century of its existence, the capital has trained a large number of referees who have held significant positions not only in Ukrainian, but also in international football. These are 32 FIFA referees and assistant referees, 16 referees of the All-Union category of the USSR, 52 referees of the Republican category of the USSR and 81 referees of the National category of Ukraine.
Such figures as Nikolay Tananaev, Samuil Khavchin, Vladimir Blyakh, Ivan Kosmachev, Lev Chernobylsky, Semyon Heifets, Mikhail Khodak, Leonid Aranovsky stood at the origins of Kyiv refereeing.
Famous in the past football players Nikolai Balakin, Georgy Ponomarev, Oleg Laevsky, Boris Lipsky, Boris Grishin, Pavel Vinkovatov and others were involved in arbitration. Referees Mikhail Korsunsky and Vitaly Kulibabenko have the title of Honoured Coaches of the Union.
Nikolay Krivchenya, Oleksandr Tsapovetskyi, Boris Shmigelskyi, Konstantin Vikhrov, Igor Kachar, Boris Shvetsov, Vasyl Rybalov, Oleksandr Mugurdumov, Nikolay Kirsanov, Volodymyr Grinberg, Oleksandr Balakin, Igor Vertogradov and others made a significant contribution to the formation of the referee corps.
Kyiv football arbitration is, in particular, traditions and continuity. Including at the level of dynasties. Indeed, a unique phenomenon of the sports world are the Balakin and Aranovski families, whose representatives have been refereeing football matches of the highest level for the third generation!
At the dawn of football Independence, Kyiv was represented at the elite level by several iconic names. This is Serhiy Tatulyan, who was the first in Ukraine to officiate 100 matches in the High League and three times won the title of the best referee in the country. And Vadim Shevchenko, who was the first Ukrainian referee to receive the title "FIFA referee", and Anatoliy Aranovskiy, Anatoliy Popov, Igor Yarmenchuk, Oleksandr Litvinenko, Oleksandr Kozachenko, Anatoliy Kutsev.
Igor Ishchenko (also a three-time winner of the symbolic "Golden Whistle"), Oleg Derevinsky, Sergey Shebek, Alexander Shamich (the current head of the Board), Sergey Sobotyuk, Sergey Dzyuba, Tatyana Aseeva, Natalia Rachinskaya and others have gained well-deserved authority in domestic football.
The Collegium of football referees and observers of Kyiv is a powerful effective mechanism. The Board of Football Referees and Observers of Kyiv is a powerful and effective mechanism with more than 700 members, 250 of whom are acting referees. Collective member of the Football Association of Kyiv is the only such mechanism in Ukraine. Kyiv is the only such department in Ukraine registered with the state structures as a public organisation with its own account.
For the season 2022-2023, the Board has registered 1 referee and 1 FIFA assistant, 4 referees and 6 assistants of the Ukrainian Premier League, 5 referees and 7 assistants of the First League, 2 referees and 6 assistants of the Second League - U-19 League 14 representatives of the Kyiv football femida worked as match observers in all-Ukrainian competitions. We are proud that compared to other regions of Ukraine the capital was represented by a large number of referees and observers.
During the last football season, marked by the war against Rashism, representatives of the Collegium worked at more than 6000 matches of the championship, championships and cups of Kyiv, at various tournaments under the auspices of the Football Federation of the city. Kiev.
The Collegium has a unique Football Referees Training Centre named after Mykola Balakin, the first referee of the International category from Ukraine, which was established in 2005. The institution began to work long before the opening of the National School of Football Referees, which gives Kyivians the right to be considered pioneers of organised education and training of football referees.
To date, the Centre has trained more than 500 graduates. These are not only Kyiv residents, not only representatives of other regions, but also citizens of the USA, Israel, Slovakia and Poland. Among the trainees of the Centre are FIFA referees and assistant referees, referees and assistants of the Ukrainian Premier League, the first and second leagues of the Professional League of our country.
Oleksiy KAZANOV
