Playing professional football in Ukraine isn’t all glitz and glamour.
Besides all the training, footballers face having their salaries withheld, being forced to train alone and being approached to fix games.
A recent study of players in 15 Eastern European countries released in February by FIFPro, a global organization representing professional footballers, gives an insight into the problems of the modern footballer.
Chief among them are financial issues.
Of the 363 Ukrainian footballers surveyed, 15.5 percent have had delays in the payment of their salaries, while 7.6 percent have been approached to consider match-fixing. That means that, on average, almost two of the 22 players on the field will have been offered the chance to fix a game’s result.
“A player who has to wait for his money has a greater chance of being approached to manipulate a match,” the FIFPro report reads.
These issues for players have come into the spotlight ahead of the Euro 2012 tournament with the recent hearing at the Court for Arbitration in Sport in Lausanne, Switzerland.
The court will decide whether a 2008 match between Kharkiv Metalist and Karpaty was fixed. Metalist won the game 4-0. In August 2010, Ukraine’s football federation found that the match was fixed and, fined and banned the players and club officials from the two clubs in addition to deducting 9 points from each side.
In their decision, FFU officials pointed to a video made a few days after the game that surfaced in Ukrainian media in 2010.
The video allegedly shows Karpaty defender Serhiy Lashchenkov telling the club’s honorary president Petro Dymyinsky how the game was fixed. A voice, allegedly Lashchenkov’s, says in the recording that he took $110,000 from Yevhen Krasnikov, Metalist’s sporting director and, along with other senior players, talked his teammates into taking $10,000 each to the lose the game.
The court is yet to deliver its verdict from the February hearing.
Metalurg Zaporizhia forward Oleksiy Bielik said that, apart from injuries, he has endured the three biggest problems that the survey identified: “All the problems mentioned – late salary payment, having to train alone and being approached to manipulate a game – I’ve personally encountered them, and these problems exist in many Ukrainian football clubs.”
Retired Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk goalkeeper Viacheslav Kernozenko said he had payment of his salary delayed during his career. He also said that match fixing was prevalent although he personally was never approached to influence the course or outcome of a game.
Match fixing is a big problem in Ukrainian football that everyone talks about but nobody does anything about,
– Viacheslav Kernozenko, Retired Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk goalkeeper
The study showed that 13 percent of footballers said they were aware of match-fixing taking place in Ukrainian league football.
“Match fixing is a big problem in Ukrainian football that everyone talks about but nobody does anything about” said Kernozenko, now a coach.
Ukraine’s premier league has been roiled in recent months with match-fixing allegations.
The latest claim came after the April 7 Shakhtar Donetsk–Dynamo Kyiv match during which referee Yuri Vaks sent a player off in the first half under questionable circumstances and who critics said made biased calls throughout the game in favor of Shakhtar.
“Under closer examination, Vaks had issued unnecessary (yellow and red) cards for this (Dynamo) and that (Shakhtar) team,” said Prof. Konstantyn Vikhrov, a former UEFA delegate for Ukraine. “And when it was necessary to give a warning card, he failed to do so.”
Vaks has refused to comment on the game.
Legendary Italian referee Pierluigi Collina was even hired in July 2010 to reorganize the way in which Ukrainian football is adjudicated.
He has far-reaching authority to create a new refereeing superstructure within the Ukrainian game that will be specifically designed to ensure match officials are held to account and provided with the institutional support necessary to allow them to do their jobs objectively.
Ukrainian Premier League club owners and presidents Mykola Slobodyan, Vadim Rabinovich, Ihor Kolomoisky and Vasyl Stoliar have recently made match-fixing allegations.
The most uproar about match-fixing took place after the Dec. 4 Volyn-Metallist game when the latter won 3-1. Then Volyn coach Vitaliy Kvartsiany accused the referee of taking cash, and the entire refereeing system being “corrupt from head to toes.”
Kvartsiany was subsequently fired on Dec. 26, and FFU’s disciplinary committee in February banned him from football until the end of this season.
Soon after Kvartsiany’s allegations, Kolomoisky publicly accused him of taking money for match-fixing. This allegation was followed by Kyiv Arsenal owner Rabinovich who complained of corruption among referees, as well as by Kyiv Obolon owner Slobodyan.
Volyn president Stoliar also accused Kolomoisky’s Dnipro of throwing a match this season.
“In match-fixing, the coach usually is aware of it before it happens as do the players directly involved,” said football expert and former TV broadcaster Ihor Miroshnychenko.
He added that another problem that exists is multiple clubs being controlled by the same person, a clear conflict of interest that encourages match fixing.
Kyiv Post staff writer Mark Rachkevych can be reached at [email protected].
