Famous Ukrainian coach Oleg Fedorchuk shared his view on the situation with the match of the 16th round of the Ukrainian championship between Minaj and Dynamo, which was first postponed due to an air raid alert and then cancelled due to the lack of artificial lighting at the Minaj stadium.
- The match between Minaj and Dynamo did not take place in the 16th round, as the air raid alert interrupted the game for more than an hour and a half. The game did not continue because there was no lighting in the arena in Minaj. Who is to blame for this situation?
- The person who accepted the certification of the Mynai football club stadium is to blame. Football people know who it is. In fact, everything is simple: any UPL arena, according to the Regulations, must have two mandatory things - lawn heating and field lighting. In Ukraine, I think everyone clearly understands that from mid-November it gets dark early - somewhere after 4pm. Twilight is bad for the teams' ability to play, but even worse for the TV broadcast of the match.
Whoever made the decision to certify the stadium in Mynai, which has no lighting, should be punished. Everyone understood perfectly well that during the war there could be air raids, which meant pauses of at least an hour, but usually they lasted more than two hours, sometimes even four hours.
- Is Dynamo Kyiv the injured party in this case?
- The unfinished match with Minaj had a special connotation - for Kyiv, it was a game for leadership, a "championship" game, as Yuriy Vernydub says, that is, one in which you cannot lose points in any case. Therefore, Dynamo fiercely defended their interests, and this is quite understandable. Why play in the dark, or break your competitive schedule and play the next day, or on some other December day, especially given that on 7 December you have to play a rescheduled match against Metalist 1925?
- That is, the only option that was favourable for Dynamo was to postpone the match against Minaj until spring?
- Absolutely. Two points are important here. First: in spring there is a chance to play on a better pitch and in more favourable weather conditions. The second is that the opponent will not be the same Minaj that was in the autumn part of the season. It is already known that a significant group of players has left the team, which will no longer play in official matches this year. But the departure from Minaj will be even bigger - God willing, at least 50 per cent of the players will stay there. According to my information, Yegor Tverdokhlib, who is in demand from other clubs, may join those who have left.
Oleg Semenchenko