Ukrainian businessman Femis Sagirov, who was the owner of the now defunct FC Peremoha (Dnipro), recalled how he worked at the club with the famous Ukrainian coach Oleg Taran.
- What was your experience of working with Yevhen Yarovenko and Oleg Taran?
- I was most unhappy with Taran. He is a legendary alcoholic who is parasitic on football. He even tried to sell three FC Peremoha players to other clubs when he was working in my team - Semka, Sydorenko and Pavliuk. They did not arrive at the winter training camp and Taran tried to pressure us to give him the absentee ballots for these players. We had a lot of calls, but I sent them all away delicately and Sydorenko and Pavlyuk continued to play for us, while I let Semka go to Girnyk-Sport.
Taran tried to sell a few matches, but thank God, I had time to react.
- How?
- Taran and Yarovenko had a goalkeeper, Vartsaba, whom they followed everywhere. Because of him, they sometimes tried to merge matches and I had to intervene on the fly. I offered Yarovenko, Taran and Vartsaba to take a lie detector test, but they refused. After that, everything went on normally, they were probably afraid.
If we analyse Vartsaba's performances for FC Peremoha, we still have questions about several matches.
We also have questions about Taran's money. We gave money to the team, but it was constantly missing and written off as virtual expenses. We caught the administrator, who was brought by Taran and Yarovenko, and immediately fired him.
It all came to a head when Yarovenko and Taran started organising breakfasts and dinners for the team at their friend's cafe, which cost 170 and 220 UAH per person. Then I found out that they had their interests there, and they received 30 and 50 hryvnias out of these amounts, respectively.
I couldn't stand it anymore, I fired Taran, Yarovenko and all their players, recruited young people, and the next year we had a great team that, if not for the war, would have played in the first league.
Andrii Piskun