Desna president Levin: "We have a reserved place in the UPL. If we lose it, we will not revive the club"

Desna President Volodymyr Levin commented on the information about the revival of the Chernihiv club and Oleksandr Riabokon's return to work.

- Vladimir Ilyich, is it true that Desna can be revived and you are in talks with sponsors?

- Yes, we are negotiating with sponsors. If there is money, there will be a club. It's too early to talk about specifics. The most important thing that Desna has now is a reserved place in the UPL. If we lose it, there will be no point in reviving the club, we simply won't find sponsors.

- Can you lift the veil of secrecy about the sponsors you are negotiating with?

- These are Chernihiv businessmen, I can't say anything else.

- If the club is revived, will Oleksandr Riabokon and Vadym Melnyk return to their positions as head coach and sporting director respectively?

- Yes, I am in touch with them and they are ready to start working. Last week we met with Ryabokon. Oleksandr Dmytrovych is in good health and eager to work. He is now in Kyiv, upgrading his coaching qualifications, constantly studying so as not to lose his skills.

- I understand that you will slightly change the name, for example, add the prefix SK, so that the club does not take over Desna's debts?

- No, we won't. If some SC Desna appears, we will definitely have nothing to do with it. We are talking to the sponsors about the revival of Desna and the repayment of debts. But there are problems.

- What are they?

- We have no team, no stadium and debts to a group of our ex-players, but the main problem is [Romanian legionnaire Constantin] Dima, because UEFA took his side and we need to pay him 400 thousand euros. So far, we cannot resolve this situation and close the transfer ban. If we don't manage to resolve the issue somehow, it will be impossible to raise the club. So far, the sponsors don't want to look beyond their debt to Dima.

- So why don't you create SC Desna, for example?

- Because UEFA will transfer the debts of the old Desna to this club.

- But there is the example of SC Dnipro-1.

- These are very rare stories, there is some kind of internal agreement there. We won't be able to do that.

- Does Desna still have any players under contract?

- All contracts were unilaterally terminated by FIFA. This caused the club losses.

- According to our information, a few months ago there were people who wanted to buy Desna (we are talking about the owner of FC Kudrivka-Niva and the founder of FC Kudrivka, Roman Solodarenko). Is it true?

- Yes, there was a conversation, but it didn't work out. It is expensive to restore a club, it is cheaper to create a new one and start from scratch. Today, it is easier to take a new team, build a new stadium and go from the second league to the UPL.

- There was information that Borussia Dortmund was ready to help with the reconstruction of Desna's stadium. Did the German club contact you?

- Former Minister of Culture and Information Policy Oleksandr Tkachenko wrote about this. I, like you, read about it in the press. "Borussia had no contact with us on this matter at all. If they talked to Tkachenko, it means that he failed to establish communication between Desna and Borussia Dortmund.

- Did Desna receive a percentage for Mudryk's transfer to Chelsea?

- It's a very complicated procedure. Mudryk's contract with Chelsea is complicated, lawyers are working on it, the process is ongoing. There is nothing more to say.

- Is the issue with Dima being resolved in any way?

- We don't want to go to court, because we will need to spend 30-60 thousand dollars, and the result may not be in our favour again. And his lawyers have not been negotiating with us for years. They benefit from this situation. They made 400+ thousand out of 34 thousand. This is a stumbling block today.

It would have been easier for us if the issue with Dima had been resolved, but UEFA imposed the harshest sanctions possible on us without even considering our arguments about what happened. I don't know why.

- If the issue is resolved, in which division does Desna plan to start?

- Even if the UAF allows us to start in the UPL, I believe that Desna should start at least in the First League. Recruiting players for the Premier League in half a season is very expensive. You need a powerful investor for that.

- Where does Desna plan to play if everything goes well?

- We will rent a stadium from someone and ask them to visit. We have a plot in Chernihiv where we can build a pitch, but it's for the future. There are problems with the transfer of sewage, but they can be solved.

As for the destroyed Gagarin Stadium, it belongs to the Ministry of Sports, but today the main thing is to protect the country, so there is no need to spend such a lot of money if there is no base team in the region.

Andrii Piskun