Taras Stepanenko: "The people who organize our tournaments should pay more attention to safety"

Shakhtar midfielder Taras Stepanenko shared his thoughts on the unfinished Ukrainian Premier League match against Kryvbas.

"I can say that I already have experience of finishing matches and how to sit indoors three or four times when we played for six hours in Dnipro. Now I have the experience that the match will be postponed. It's very difficult, but we understand that we have a difficult situation in the country, frontline cities are always at risk. And if a decision is made, it's better not to finish the game for safety's sake. Of course, when you are emotional, you want to finish the match, especially since we have a difficult schedule, and it is difficult to get to Kryvyi Rih and there are always air raids here. But it is what it is. To be honest, we are a bit disappointed because we wanted to finish the match.

After what happened in Kryvyi Rih, I was worried, my family was worried, and I know that the players' wives were very worried. The foreigners are understandable: they came to another country and were scared, but they pulled themselves together. They created conditions for us: we spent the night in another city, traveled to the game by bus for two hours, and started this match, played, but lost. It's hard, it's not very pleasant, and it seems to me that the people who organize our tournaments and matches should pay more attention to safety. Because it's not funny, to be honest. And I think it's not always right," Stepanenko was quoted as saying by Shakhtar's official website.