Kryvbas Vice President Artem Gagarin spoke about the fans’ attitude towards the club.
Artyom Gagarin– We just spoke to the fans and they said that they have accepted the club. They understand that this is not the fault of others, we no longer have the old leaders. We are not fooling anyone.
– Recently, Dnipro hosted a round table discussion on the disappearance of big football in the city, to which sports journalists and football personalities were invited. Are you ready to support the idea of creating a new Dnipro or reviving the old one?
– If you take the Dnipro team, there are a lot of guys there with whom we were friends. I was a presenter in Warsaw at the Europa League final. It’s great to have two clubs in the region. You don’t have to be afraid of competition.
If you need support, tell me how, and I will support you. I think Kryvbas will support us too. We often get letters: “You killed Shakhtar to create Kryvbas,” and we always laughed about that. But everyone understands that the rebranding has taken place. The Kryvbas brand is more popular, everyone remembers and loves Kryvbas, and everyone has benefited from it.
– Are there any problems with the debts of the former Kryvbas? Has UEFA sent you anything?
– No further claims can be filed due to the statute of limitations. The deadline for filing claims has already expired.
– Then what prevents you from taking over the history of this Kryvbas?
– We took more than that. We took the history of football in Kryvyi Rih. Why did we do that? If you delve into history, the newspapers say that in 1959 a team called “Girnyk” was founded. We are going to publish a book. We want to find out when football started in Kryvyi Rih.
The last thing that surprised me about the history of Ukrainian football was the new “Slava Ukraine” stickers on the shirts. It says that we have been developing Ukrainian football for a year. I didn’t know at all what year it was, so I googled and found out that the first game was in Lviv. There is also a monument there. Well, it’s history, someone wrote it, and that’s how it started.
Oleh Didukh
