Oleksandriya goalkeeper Mykyta Shevchenko spoke about his relationship with one of his former clubs, Luhansk's Zorya.
Mykyta Shevchenko. Photo — fco.com.ua- A year ago, you left Zorya, where you spent a large part of your career. How did you part ways with the club?
- I didn't part very well. Neither with the team nor with the club, but personally with the president Yevhen Heller. He did not fulfil his obligations to me.
For six months, I was actually without a team and experienced apathy. I thought about giving up football altogether. Agents called, but I said I didn't want anything. The management drank the juice out of me...
- What did you do during the first part of last season? Almost nothing was heard about you.
- I was recovering from meniscus surgery in Germany. I was helped by Yoel Abou Hanna's parents, who made arrangements with the doctors. Afterwards, I met with the club president and returned to Germany for rehabilitation and to my family. I recovered physically and mentally.
- Does Zorya still owe you money?
- We had been without money for a certain period of time before the full-scale invasion. After the outbreak of the great war, the club disappeared altogether. The then CEO Stanislav Oganov wrote: "Take care of yourself, the task is to survive." And that was it. Later, before the start of the new season, they asked me about the size of my shoes and when and where we were going to meet.
"Zorya owes me money for about a year. I am currently in litigation with the club. I filed a lawsuit with the UAF Chamber of Disputes. The contract was cancelled unilaterally.
- Is Geller good or bad for Zorya?
- Hmm... It's yin and yang. Sometimes it seems that for Geller it is a suitcase without a handle, which is difficult to carry and a pity to leave. He keeps this team together, well done. However, again, keeping and fulfilling all obligations to the players are different things. That's why it's hard for me to answer this question.
Previously, the guys went to Zorya because it played in European competitions. Now I don't know what the club will do. Football is one big swamp where everyone talks to each other. It will be difficult for Luhansk to recruit players because everyone knows that there are almost no conditions there. The staff who work at Zorya should have a monument erected during their lifetime.
- They say that Heller has a hard time paying the promised bonuses.
- Yes, yes. Sometimes a person thinks that footballers are his slaves who owe him money. Before I returned to Shakhtar in 2016, I missed out on a bonus for Zorya's progress to the European Cups. In principle, this was a normal practice at the club. To those who left the team, Geller could say: "I forgive everyone who owes me."
Dmytro Venkov
