"Welcome to football February! Thank you for not being in January!" - Mykola Neseniuk on the start of the second part of the Ukr

The well-known journalist Mykola Nesenyuk spoke about the timing of the resumption of the current Ukrainian championship after the winter break.

"The Ukrainian football championship is due to resume on 23 February, the day before the second anniversary of the killer's attack. Over the next three weeks, the 16 participating teams will play four matches each, after which there will be a pause for the national team to compete for the right to take part in the final tournament of the European Championship.

We can already predict that all the scheduled matches will take place in unfavourable weather conditions on fields of not always adequate quality, which will require considerable investment to prepare for winter play. Interestingly, the competitions in the lower Ukrainian football leagues will resume a month later - in the last days of March, when there will definitely be no winter with frost and snowfall.

The question arises: why is our Premier League in such a hurry to force teams into the snow and cold? The answer is predictable - we need the players to properly prepare for important matches of the national team, to "get into the game rhythm", and so on. But is it really so?

Last year, the national team of Ukraine in official matches was represented almost exclusively by players who play in the championships of England, Spain, Italy, Portugal, France and so on. It is almost certain that in the games for the right to go to Euro 2024, no more than three or four players from the Ukrainian league will play for our national team. One or two more may not be substitutes. The rest will sit on the bench and have no influence on the result.

So what's the result? Sixteen Ukrainian teams will spend three weeks muddling around on frozen fields for the sake of four players properly "preparing" for national team matches? Although this "preparation" will actually be a desire to avoid injuries, which are very likely to occur on Ukrainian frozen fields.

And in general, how will games between Veres and Kolos or Obolon and Chornomorets, which do not include national team players, contribute to the preparation of the national team? When you realise that the entire expensive flywheel of the football championship will be spun up a month earlier under unfavourable conditions for the sake of a few players from two teams out of sixteen, it is not easy to understand the logic of the process. If so, then the league should have started at the end of January so that Shakhtar's players could better prepare for the Europa League match against French side Marseille on 15 February! But somehow Shakhtar don't demand this - they are preparing abroad!

If we are objective and disinterested, the winter resumption of the Ukrainian championship looks at least inappropriate, to say the least. In fact, there is no hurry - the four rounds scheduled for February-March can be played in April-May if you play not once, but twice a week. Just like they do in Spain or England. I have counted at least six free dates on which we could play the four rounds mentioned above and the matches postponed from the autumn.

For some reason, it seems to me that the organisers and participants of our championship are well aware of this. But they are silent. No one wants to "stumble". If so, then welcome to football February! Thank you for not January!" Nesenyuk wrote on his Facebook page.