Ihor Surkis: We warned about the possible provocations

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Dynamo president Ihor Surkis said to the Kommersant newspaper correspondent that the people in the Dynamo fan sector at the Naftovyk stadium in Okhtyrka weren’t organized Dynamo supporters. “We sent only one bus with the organized fans and their behavior was good. I don’t know who were the other people. Together with the club vice-president on the work with supporters Vadym Kostyuchenko we sent a letter to the Ministry of Home Affairs the day before the match, in which we wrote that there could be provocations organized in the stadium”, Surkis said.

The official club site published the statement that said that “Dynamo fans that arrived in the organized manner by one bus helped the law enforcement officers who tried to stop the incident”. The statement also said that “there wasn’t proper control of the people access to the stands and this allowed a group of provocateurs to worm their way into the crowd of real Dynamo supporters and try to spoil the match”.

Naftovyk-Ukrnafta director Andriy Polunin said to Kommersant that he categorically disagreed with the Dynamo assessment of the situation. “What provocation? By Naftovyk? Were those Naftovyk supporters who vandalized two trains that brought them to the match from Kyiv? No, those were drunk and stoned Kyiv idiots who looted Okhtyrka before and after the match. I don’t think that people who live in the city would ruin it themselves by jumping at the cars and smashing the windows”, Andriy Polunin said.

The referee stopped the match for the third time in the injury time after a well-dressed person aged about 40 ran to the pitch. His gestures allowed to understand he was calling to stop the match because of the disturbance in the stands. Shandor didn’t blow the final whistle and led players off the pitch. Immediately after that the police used force against the raging fans. They succeeded in pacifying about half of the supporters with Dynamo attributes on them, another half ran off the stadium where, as Kommersant source put it, they boarded several buses. The source stressed that no fans with Dynamo attributes were arrested. According to him, almost all Naftovyk supporters left the stadium after the teams left the pitch. However the match was completed. The President of the Professional Football League Ravil Safiullin told the Kommersant that 15 minutes after the stoppage the referee led the teams to the pitch again and they played the remaining 1 minute 44 seconds. The scoreline 3:0 remained unchanged. Andriy Polunin who played in Germany during his footballer career said that in that country the match would be stopped without need to wait for three stoppages. “We have appropriate football management institutions and it is now up to them to decide what to do in this situation”, Polunin said.

PFL executive director Anatoliy Popov, said to Kommersant that both teams could suffer sanctions up to points reduction. “We will study in details who was the instigator of the disturbances and only then will make the final decision during the PFL board session”, Popov said. Ihor Surkis said to Kommersant that he didn’t know what sanctions to expect, complained about poor organization of the law enforcement at the Okhtyrka stadium and reminded of “the constant club’s work with its fans”.

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