The Dynamo Children's and Youth Sports School continues to expand its cooperation with partner clubs, aiming to create a wide network of partners in Kyiv and beyond to enable children to play football at the highest level.
On June 11, the network of partners of the Dynamo Football School expanded even further within Kyiv, the region, as well as to the west and south of Ukraine - cooperation agreements were signed with four more football clubs that became official partners and representatives of the FC Dynamo Academy in different districts of Kyiv and outside the city.
These are the NGO Mykolaiv Regional Children and Youth Football Club of Early Development "Leader", football club "Euroshpon-Smyga" (Rivne region), LLC "Football Academy of SC Kyiv" (Pechersk district) and football club "Sports Academy of the Future "Chaika" (Bucha district of Kyiv region).
After the official part was over, when all the documents were signed and stamped, Dynamo Vice President Dmytro Brief addressed the audience and thanked them for their future cooperation:
- "I am very grateful to you for your work, I am glad that the list of partners of our Children's and Youth Sports School is expanding to Rivne region and Mykolaiv city, and we continue to work in Kyiv and Kyiv region. I am convinced that our cooperation will be fruitful and that we can help each other. You will help us with the search for quality players, and you will have an incentive to recruit new, talented players, because they will understand that they are constantly under the supervision of the Dynamo football academy. Undoubtedly, we will be strengthened by promising performers and continuously conduct selection work. Thank you again for your cooperation. I know that we have already interacted with some of you before and I hope for mutually beneficial work for both parties.
- "Our cooperation with partner clubs is expanding, we already have more than 20 clubs in different regions of Ukraine with which we have signed cooperation agreements," said Oleksandr Ishchenko, director of Dynamo's V. Lobanovsky Children's and Youth Sports School. "Recently, we were approached by representatives of Zaporizhzhia Metalurg, in particular, the director of their football school. We are happy to cooperate with them and help them in such a difficult time, because Zaporizhzhia has always been a "talent forge" for Ukrainian football. We hope that the cooperation agreement will be signed in the near future, and those children who have traveled all over Ukraine will be able to take part in the selection process at our school.
The program will also continue with a trip to a summer camp in Bulgaria in July, where the selection process will take place. About 160 children have already expressed their desire to participate. Two rounds of the camp are planned, during which we will review the candidates recommended to us in practice.
After signing the cooperation agreements, the heads of the partner clubs spoke about their football schools.
Vasyl Antoniuk, president of the Euroshpon-Smyga football club:
- "We have been cooperating with Dynamo for several years now, the previous agreement was signed before the war. From time to time, Dynamo representatives come to our training camp in Kremenets, where they have their training sessions at the stadium. Dynamo coaches and instructors taught our mentors how to work with children.
Of course, during the war it became harder for everyone. Luckily, we have a good sponsor, Euroshpon, whose head, Volodymyr Basyuk, is a big fan of football and helps the military a lot and develops children's football. Even during the war, our teams started playing in the first league, and the boys born in 2009 are among the leaders. Today, we have 180 children training in Smyga, and we have also opened a branch in Radyvyliv, where another 70 young footballers are studying. Our students are in Hungary - the Pushkas Academy, one boy was supposed to be in Dynamo, but his parents were afraid to let him go, so he is in Munkacs and is the top scorer in the top league. Another famous player is Oleh Shandruk, who is now the head of Veres Rivne. Our boys also played for Vorskla, and my son played for the Ukrainian national teams of all ages. In short, we have talent.
The cooperation agreement with Dynamo is a guideline for us on how to work properly and what to strive for, because it is the most important club in Ukraine, we have all been rooting for it since we were young. For me, as the president of the Euroshpon-Smyga club, it is always a pleasure when our pupils get to Dynamo. Our goal is to grow into a professional club. We are building a base for 140 seats, another large stadium with artificial turf.
Mykhailo Shevchenko, director of the Football Academy of SC Kyiv:
- Our club is young but professional. Before the war, we were building a stadium, but unfortunately, the full-scale invasion prevented us from finishing it, so we did not recruit young children. Now we have one U15 age group that participates in the Kyiv city championship and we plan to recruit younger players. We planned and had agreements to build the structure of the academy with all age groups to participate in both the Ukrainian championship (DUFL) and the Kyiv city championship, but the war made its own adjustments. Now we will start building the structure of the academy almost from scratch. In this regard, we are very interested in cooperating with Dynamo, which has extensive experience in this area.
We are well aware of our tasks and goals of FC Dynamo Kyiv, so the discussion of the cooperation agreement did not last long. The development of our club is important to us, and we expect Dynamo to provide us with methodological assistance, exchange of experience and improvement of our coaches' work, which is an important impetus for us as a professional but young club. The cooperation will also concern the infrastructure and recruitment of children in our Pechersk district. We have a very convenient location - there are two metro stations, Arsenalna and Klovska, which are five minutes away, so it's easy to get there, so we hope that children from neighboring districts will come to us.
Serhii Pozdniakov, head and senior coach of the Leader football school in Mykolaiv:
- "Our school was founded in 2018, and over the six years of its operation we have trained about 500 young football players aged 4 to 16, that is, a complete structure. This year we managed to take part in the Ukrainian championship and thus ensure the recruitment and graduation of students. Unfortunately, there is no professional team in our city, so after graduating from the academy, the players need to find somewhere to continue their careers. And Dynamo is exactly the club that can provide them with a further football career. That's why we took the initiative to sign a cooperation agreement, told them about our school, and Dynamo was interested.
Unfortunately, even before the full-scale war, Mykolaiv had a big problem with infrastructure. In particular, we have very few soccer fields, and during the war, the ones we have suffered considerably - the Central Stadium was hit, and the Zorya sports complex, where we train, was hit by cluster munitions.
For our school and the entire southern region, cooperation with Dynamo is an important event. I think the children will be delighted. The realization that they will have the opportunity to get to the capital's club will definitely add to their motivation. The cooperation also implies that our coaches will be able to come for internships and receive methodological assistance. In addition, there will be projects for children that we plan to implement together - training sessions, training camps, tournaments, etc. Everything should be at the highest level.
Yurii Omelchenko, director of the Chaika Sports Academy of the Future football club:
- Our club was founded in 2020, and today we have about 120 children aged 3 to 12. We are located in the Chaika residential complex, and we have an indoor arena where children can train comfortably in winter, especially preschoolers and children in grades 1-4. We also have a 40 m × 20 m soccer field where we conduct training in the warm seasons. Parents and children feel very comfortable here, because, in addition to a high-quality approach to training, 50 security guards work on the territory of the complex around the clock to ensure safety.
"From our cooperation with Dynamo, we expect the development of our children, the best of whom will get a chance to join your academy and compete with the best clubs in Ukraine. In addition, they will know that there is only one club in Kyiv, and it is Dynamo. We support this team and would like to gain experience from Dynamo. It is important that this cooperation is bilateral, and children who for some reason do not fit the club will be recommended to train with us.
It should be noted that the Dynamo Children's and Youth Sports School named after V. Lobanovsky is open to cooperation with other football clubs in Kyiv, the region and other cities of Ukraine. We hope that the fruitful work will bear fruit in the form of training new talented football players who will eventually join the Dynamo first team, as well as Ukrainian professional clubs and national teams.