The House of Football hosted a meeting of the FFU Women's Soccer Committee

19.09.2018 21:38

Photo of FFU press service

On September 19, the House of Football chaired by the Chairman of the FFU Women's Football Committee Valery Lunchenko hosted a meeting of the committee, which was attended by the first vice-presidents of the federation Vadym Kostyuchenko and Oleg Protasov.

Before starting the committee, First Vice-President of the FFU Vadim Kostyuchenko, together with the chairman of the committee, Valery Lunchenko congratulated the 70th anniversary of the deputy chairman of the committee Mykola Eropunov and awarded him the Football Federation of Ukraine honors for his significant contribution to the development of women's football.

Photo of FFU press service

The first and one of the main issues on the agenda was summing up the performance of the national women's national team of Ukraine in the qualifying round of the 2019 World Cup. Unfortunately, the national team of Ukraine could not get to the finals, taking third place in its group and passing ahead of the teams of Sweden and Denmark. The Ukrainian footballers have four victories in eight matches and three points away from the second place, which allowed them to compete for a ticket to the World Cup in head-to-head matches.

At the committee meeting, the audience heard a report on the performance in the selection for the 2019 World Cup head coach Volodymyr Reva, who worked with the team for two cycles, but failed to bring it to the European Championship or the World Cup.

Photo of FFU press service

The coach noted the appropriate conditions provided for the team to play in the qualifying round, and the growing interest in women's football in general and the team in particular by the fans who supported the team at home games in Lviv and Ternopil.

In turn, the first vice-president of FFU Oleh Protasov noted the prospects of the national women's national team of Ukraine and wished the team, despite the last two unsuccessful selections, to continue to work hard to regain lost positions in the future.

According to FFU First Vice-President Vadym Kostyuchenko, during these two cycles the women's national team rejuvenated its squad by inviting players from the youth team to join the ranks, but even in these conditions it had every reason to expect a more successful performance. 

After hearing the report of the head coach and the opinion of members of the women's football committee, the participants recognized the performance of the blue and yellows in the 2019 World Cup selection as generally unsatisfactory, so the Football Federation of Ukraine decided not to continue cooperation with Volodymyr Reva.

Having considered and taken into account the proposals for candidates for the position of head coach of the national women's national team of Ukraine, the committee decided to recommend the FFU Executive Committee to appoint Natalia Zinchenko, who is currently the head coach of the Ukrainian women's youth team, as a mentor until the end of the 2021 European Championship.

Also during the meeting, the head of the Women's Football Department Ivan Shepelenko told the audience about the All-Ukrainian football competitions among women's and girls' teams of the 2018/2019 season and preparation for the participation of youth teams WU-19 and WU-17 in qualifying matches of the European Championships.

Against the background of growing popularity and attention of fans to women's football, its growing media activity on social networks was noted. Facebook and Instagram, as well as on YouTube channels, which covers all the matches of the Women's League of Ukraine Championship.

Soon, women's football of Ukraine will have its own anthem, which was authored by Honored Artist of Ukraine Natalia Karpa.