Andriy Pavelko: “Special operation was conducted - only the beginning of cleansing of Ukrainian football from the illness of contract matches”

23.05.2018 00:20

Photo of FFU press service

Today, on May 22, officers of the National Police and the Prosecutor General's Office of Ukraine conducted a special operation in 10 regions aimed at identifying persons involved in the organization of contractual matches. Later, the President of the Football Federation of Ukraine Andriy Pavelko, the Head of the National Police Sergey Knyazev, the First Deputy Prosecutor General Dmytro Storozhuk and the First Vice President of the FFU Nazar Kholodnitsky held a joint briefing during which they spoke about the results of this operation and the results of the joint work aimed at fighting .

Work on identifying and gathering evidence on the organizers and participants of contract matches has been conducted over the past year. In total, the activities of five criminal groups and 35 football clubs were documented. As part of this case, the Department of Economic Protection, the Main Investigation Department of the National Police and the GPU conducted 40 searches. According to law enforcement officers, the criminal groups included presidents of football clubs, former and current players, referees, coaches, commercial entities and citizens of Ukraine. More than 320 people have been identified as involved in corruption schemes and involved in more than 50 episodes. In most cases, knowing the future outcome of the game, the organizers of contract matches bet on the resources of bookmakers, which are registered in Asian countries. According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, in the game on the tote, the attackers earned up to 5 million US dollars a year.

It is planned to inform the organizers about the suspicion of Part 4 of Art. 368-3 (bribery of a person providing public services) and Part 1 of Art. 369-3 (unlawful influence on the results of official sports competitions) of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.

This is the first case in Ukraine when not only players and officials of football clubs, but also organizers of such matches can be prosecuted. According to FFU President Andriy Pavelko, this is just the beginning of cleansing Ukrainian football of a problem that has been ingrained in our country for years. "This is a systemic problem that we challenged at the beginning of our work. To counter it, the adoption of the law "On Prevention of Influence on the Results of Official Competitions of Corrupt Offenses" was initiated, thanks to which it is now possible to fight the cancerous tumor of domestic football not only with administrative fines but also with more effective tools. If necessary, we are ready to initiate new changes to this document in order to expand this toolkit and more effectively counter such a shameful phenomenon as contractual matches, "said Andriy Pavelko.

The FFU President also expressed confidence that the work of the FFU Ethics and Fair Play Committee chaired by Francesco Baranka and his cooperation with FFU First Vice President Nazar Kholodnytsky, who managed to unite the efforts of the entire power bloc, is a good start. "This is a good signal to all young players who are just starting their careers and may be tempted to make quick money to think about whether it is worth the risk. In addition, our work will be a valuable experience for European and world football. Without exaggeration, this is a historic day for national football, and I am grateful for the work done by the leadership of the National Police and the Prosecutor General's Office, "said Andriy Pavelko.

Nazar Kholodnytskyi, the first vice-president of the FFU, also thanked for the fruitful cooperation in identifying and gathering evidence on dozens of episodes of contract matches. "It is important that thanks to the effective combination of efforts of the National Police and the Prosecutor General's Office, we managed to bring our joint work to a logical first result. Football must be high quality and honest, and then we will see the result. The system has been under construction for decades, but we will be able to destroy it, "Nazar Kholodnytskyi stressed. According to him, the efforts will allow domestic football to develop successfully. "We will not constantly look back and be proud of history, we will create a new football history of Ukraine, and our players will think about the game, not about how to intentionally lose the match," said the first vice-president of FFU.