Oleksandriya coach and former Dnipro captain Ruslan Rotan spoke about the situation when the Dnipro club might not have had enough uniforms for the historic Europa League final against Sevilla.
Here is how Rotan described the situation in his book: "Playing in the Europa League that season, we always changed shirts. And suddenly, in one of the matches, we were forbidden to do so because we didn't have the uniforms for the next game. The situation with the uniforms and tickets to the UEFA Europa League final is one of the most unpleasant moments in my career. I think Ihor Valeriyovych (Kolomoisky) didn't even know that Dnipro didn't have a uniform. Andriy Rusol and I chipped in and bought them. We had three days to resolve the issue with the uniforms, so we just did it."
Recently, at a regular event of the Dnipro Oblast Sports Journalists Association, Media Sport Club Dnipro, the story of how Rotan and Rusol bought a uniform for the Europa League final was mentioned. Andriy Stetsenko, the longtime general director of FC Dnipro, who was an invited guest, said that it was not true that the club did not provide uniforms for the final. He said that they had indeed switched on the economy mode and stopped taking extra copies, but the club provided the uniforms for the final.
Lysenko's correspondent Ihor contacted former Dnipro captain Ruslan Rotan to get a response to Stetsenko's statement and put the matter to rest once and for all.
- Ruslan Petrovich, I read your book and remember your indignant position on the uniforms, so I wanted to hear more specifics, how did things really go down in light of Andriy Stetsenko's latest statement?
- After each game, the team took away some of the shirts because they were very memorable matches, the way to the Europa League final. That's why there were not enough sets of uniforms, and it even went so far as to have players wearing polos of different colors or designs on the road. So Andriy Rusol and I bought a uniform and a polo so that everyone would wear the same one as a team.
- Andrii Viktorovych said that there were 6 sets for the game, but they were all given to someone, distributed, and so on, so there was a shortage.
- It's true, we did take these shirts for ourselves because they are memorable. In addition, after the matches, when they started not paying salaries, the guys were angry, so they could take several sets instead of the allowed one, and that's why we were short. We bought uniforms so that we wouldn't be embarrassed and go to the final in nothing.