Oleh Pechornyi, the head of the Footballers' Association of Ukraine, told 1927.kiev.ua what difficulties players from even the top 5 teams of the Ukrainian championship face.
- "We have a lot of scam clubs in the UPL, where charlatans work and deceive players. Yesterday I spoke to Mykola Pavlov, a member of the UAF executive committee. We have been conducting an audit for two months and nothing is working. What should a footballer do if his case is pending in the UAF Dispute Resolution Chamber? There is a specific case: Oleh Sokolov, a former player of Ternopil's Niva, filed an application with the Chamber to terminate his contract with the Ternopil club because of salary arrears. While the case is pending, he can sign for another team, but clubs are afraid to sign players without a decision from the Dispute Resolution Chamber. It turns out that the players in this case become hostages of the situation.
Once again, we see that Ukrainian football has no social protection for players. If a player gets injured, he is not paid his salary. Even among the top 5 UPL teams, there are teams where players are treated and undergo surgeries at their own expense. Players recover at their own expense.
The Premier League and PFL do not resolve any issues with players. What should players do if they are not paid their salary arrears, as in the situation with FC Lviv? Salaries must be paid month after month, and taxes are paid on them. If we "dig" into the Premier League, the First and Second Leagues, we will find about 10-15 clubs that similarly do not pay taxes, do not have insurance, do not pay in case of injuries to players.
The UAF should also do something for the players. For example, in foreign championships, players contribute to a pension fund to receive pensions after their football career. We don't have this in Ukraine. We also don't have any support programmes for players after they retire. I understand that we have a war in our country, but we have been going to Europe for decades, but in reality there are no changes, and the urgent issues of the players are not being resolved either. Therefore, we will officially address the UAF with proposals on these topics," Pechorny said.