Games Off the Field

At the end of the fall part of the season Dynamo Kyiv player Vladyslav Vashchuk started playing for Spartak, Moscow. It came as a surprise to all soccer fans, and even to the managers of Dynamo, to which Vashchuk is bound by a valid contract. This detective story has been unfolding for two months. The player, elected Dynamo Kyiv captain in the summer of 2002, claims that his contract with the Club has expired, while the Club insists that the contract is still valid, and Vashchuk has no right to play for any other team in or outside Ukraine. In this case Spartak must pay a fine to Dynamo Kyiv for signing their player, as FIFA rules require. The latest news in this scandal was V. Vashchuk’s petition to prosecutors that his signature on the contract with Dynamo was forged. A graphology exam proved that the contract in question contains an authentic signature of this player. This contract is registered with the Professional Soccer League of Ukraine. Hryhory Surkis, President of the Soccer Federation of Ukraine, said at an interview in Moscow that he was not eager to disqualify the player who must have gotten lost in his business affairs.

The scandal around this Dynamo player prompted this article which attempts to assess V. Vashchuk’s behavior from both sporting and legal point of view.

Dynamo Kyiv players born in 1975 were lucky: everything was ideal, like in a lottery card with the right numbers. These boys were born and raised under a stable Soviet socialism, received free education, including soccer instruction. Maybe, in their childhood, they could not drink enough Coca-Cola, eat enough hamburgers, or see enough Disney’s cartoons. None of them is now likely to be regretting this. For, in all other respects, they had a fabulous life.

They did not have to play the required period in Dynamo’s second division, because it was abolished. At the same time Dynamo Kyiv stars of the late 80-s fled the country’s poverty and instability in search of a fast buck. So the way to the first division and to Dynamo was open.

Once on the team, the 19-year-old players very quickly received what their senior colleagues had tried to seek abroad. They did not have “the housing problem,” did not struggle to get ahead on the waiting list to buy a car, and did not have to bring high-quality garments and household appliances from abroad, spending all travel allowance and humiliating themselves in front of the customs officers.

In 1993, Dynamo began to do its best to provide the players with the same or almost the same things that their Western counterparts had. The rest of Ukrainian soccer clubs began to do the same several years later. Meanwhile, the young Dynamo players easily beat their domestic rivals, weary from internal difficulties, thus saving strength for Champions League and national team games.

Then fortune smiled on them again: Valery Lobanovsky came back. Under his guidance, Shevchenko, Shovkovsky, Dmytrulin, Vashchuk, and Fedorov formed the skeleton of Dynamo, which burst into the European soccer elite and became a force to be reckoned with. Playing for the national team on two occasions, these athletes almost made it to the finals of the European Championship and the World Cup, giving in to only the German and French teams in the qualifying games.

The lives of these young Dynamo players were also easy because the existing soccer training system in Ukraine collapsed and no longer produced new generations of potential stars, so nobody “goaded” the boys from below. There was only one way — forward and up! They did not have to look to the West for material benefits, for they had practically the same in Dynamo. The only reason for going abroad was a chance to play for Europe’s strongest clubs and grow professionally. Dynamo never tried to prevent Andriy Shevchenko or Kakhi Kaladze from transferring to Milan, Serhiy Rebrov to Tottenham Hotspur, Oleh Luzny to Arsenal, Yury Maksymov to Werder, and Serhiy Serebrennikov to Brugge. The club received financial compensation in accordance with the player’s level, while the player got a chance to try himself out in new conditions.

Some players from the “golden generation” remained unwanted by Europe’s best clubs. Those boys continued to serve their native club faithfully, which forgave mistakes, allowed them to play again after injuries, and solved all material problems at the highest possible level.

Did they understand that their personal talent and skills were just a small, and by no means the main, component of the soccer career and material well- being?

All good things eventually come to an end. The Club acquired new ambitious players, who were eager to find a secure place in the team. Injuries happened and took some out of the game for a while. Dynamo continued to play and win, and the “golden boys” became older and had to win the right to play on the team. By the age of twenty seven their organisms ran out of natural resources, and it became increasingly difficult to recover strength after exhausting games. On the other hand, the players finally matured, which their peers, who were not destined to play for Dynamo, did long ago. The latter had learned far earlier the true value of a hard-earned penny, because they were paid far less than what Dynamo’s golden boys got used to. Ukrainian soccer fans continued to support their teams by coming to see different games after long working hours. They kept hoping that other Ukrainian clubs will follow in Dynamo’s footsteps and catch up with the stable and affluent Europe.

A scandal is now rocking Dynamo. The team’s captain Vladyslav Vashchuk has run away, to put it bluntly. He did so playing “a game of his own” off the field, without saying a word to his managers or fans. Giving in to the promises of greater pay, he quickly forgot the club to which he owed his sporting achievements and wealth.

Yet, he will come down to earth very soon. Take the striking example of the Kyiv Central Army Sport Club (KCAS) ex-player Edward Tsykhmeistruk, who once also fell for Spartak’s offer, and lied about his contract with KCAS. As a result, the player was suspended for six months, and Spartak paid a fine for him. Last spring the Moscow Club dumped him. Now this former player of Ukraine’s National team and Spartak’s rising star has to bend over backwards to gain favor with the management of Metallurg Donetsk, and thus continue his soccer career. One can also recall other soccer players thrown away as “waste.”

None of the Ukrainian soccer players who left for Russia in a deceitful way became a national hero or a star over there. It has been going on since the early nineties, when some Ukrainians started leaving for Spartak, readily becoming “Russians,” tempted by the prospects of “great victories.” And what did Yuran, Nikiforov, Tsymbalar, Onopko, Ternavsky et al. gain as a result?

They can make one excuse, however, that in those times nobody had a clear idea of such things as contract, transfer or compensation. Now we are, admittedly, civilized countries. Both Ukraine and Russia have established professional leagues functioning under FIFA and UEFA regulations as part of national associations. Soccer players are no longer “kidnapped” in ex-Soviet republics, nor do they defect from their teams. Everything is subject to international standards.

But can conscience be standardized? Will the blind and fervent desire to cash in on soccer ever obey the letter of the law?

It is clear now that Dynamo fans and Dynamo managers did not know the whole truth about Vashchuk. One can not live in the past and the present at the same time. If a professional soccer player defends the colors of Ukraine’s most venerated team, its fans have the right to know everything about him — from the contract’s duration and the amount of remuneration to marital status and health condition. And let us not think this is too cruel, too alien to us. It is not accidental that there are marriage contracts: love should not run counter to the law. The point is that a grown-up son should not say one day: “Daddy, I owe you nothing,” and that a soccer player, all the whims of whom were satisfied by the club, should not throw groundless accusations of cheating at his former benefactors.

After a graphology exam confirmed the authenticity of Vashchuk’s signature on the contract with Dynamo, the ex-captain decided to communicate with his fans only on the Internet:

“Let me explain the whole situation: the ‘new’ contract is of no consequence even in this situation. Why? Because, when the 1995 contract expired, I gave a notice on December 17 that I want to quit due to expiration of the contract. And I did the same with respect to the ‘new’ contract.”

“Then why did you say you hadn’t signed any new contracts if you claim now that you did sign your new contract and then nullified it in a letter?”

“Just to be on the safe side, so that there would be no complaints about it later.”

“So did you or did you not sign a contract with Dynamo?”

“I say it again; I signed no new contract with Dynamo.”

(This quote was taken from the online conference held at www.vaschuk.com.ua on January 24, 2003).

So, the fans did not receive a straight answer. What is more, Vashchuk has been shunning the press and Dynamo supporters for more than two months.

From now on, Dynamo President Ihor Surkis will have to look over all his contracts with the players and reword ambiguous clauses. But who will return the lost trust of the people who, instead of watching Dynamo games and tournaments, have to follow litigation between the Club and the player it owns?

Or is this perhaps an old-fashioned way of thinking? Maybe, the Vashchuk scandal will further hype up Dynamo Kyiv and Spartak Moscow? It is very unlikely.

As long as soccer has existed, only the game shows who is right and who is wrong. It will happen in this case, too. A deceitful team can not win. The very first serious game will show its true strength. Skeptics will be put to shame, optimists will be rewarded. Big soccer has no place for cheating. If bogus victories and fixed matches occur, people are ashamed of them for generations. Let us turn this page over, and leave this matter for prosecutors and bureaucrats to do confirming or denying. A new generation of Dynamo Kyiv players has risen. They may be not as lucky as the generation of Vashchuk was, but they can achieve far better results — without games off the field.