Andriy Shevchenko: "Our task is becoming more difficult - to be competitive and defend the interests of Ukraine"

Andriy Shevchenko spoke at the extraordinary report-election Congress of the UAF, where he was elected as the new president of the association.

"Our task becomes more complicated - to be competitive and to defend the interests of Ukraine. Associations in countries like the UK, Spain, Italy, Germany have two focuses. The first is to win tournaments. The second is to use football to solve social problems and challenges. If we want to develop like them, we need to close basic problems, solve basic issues.

Let us now look at the Ukrainian context. We live in the most difficult time in the history of Ukraine, when not only the future of football, but also of the whole country is being decided. The main task is to understand how football can not only survive, but also develop. The war directly affects football, we have stagnation. Low level of the championship, inability to invite powerful foreign players, complicated international prospects, outflow of talented children. Here I want to say that there is a country that has successfully overcome such a challenge - Croatia, which faced a mass exodus of children in the 90s, when they had a war.

I can say that I spoke with my friend Zvonimir Boban, who had something to do with the creation of this programme. And he is ready to help us.

We have a lot of problems. Let's go through the key ones. Mistrust of the UAF because of its lack of transparency. Marketing has suffered because of the war, we have a weak sponsorship base, distrust in the institute of football arbitration. There is a lack of modern database and other IT solutions, there are no clear criteria for success and performance, there is no unified pyramid of football competitions, professional clubs cannot agree on joint actions to develop the UPL.

The UAF is experiencing a crisis of transparency, a crisis of responsibility. And as a result - a crisis of prospects. Our main treasure is talented people and their desire to change for the better.

I want to share with you my vision for the development of Ukrainian football. We strive for:

- Ukrainian football is mass and accessible to everyone;

- our clubs are strong and efficient, and our national team is the pride of the country.

Further mission - to implement the best world standards for the rapid development of Ukrainian football and post-traumatic renewal of Ukrainians. Values - transparency, progressiveness, professionalism, inclusiveness and responsibility.

The first step is to achieve transparency of the UAF, we strive for maximum openness. So that people understand how and what they spend money on. Especially in times of war. There will be an audit of the association's activity for the last 9 years. The results will be known in 2 months.

One of the world's leading audit companies will be involved. This will make us understandable and reliable for international partners, and most importantly it will bring back the trust and respect of Ukrainians," Shevchenko said.