Basketball Federation of Ukraine reacts to disqualification of famous coach who fled the country

Viacheslav Lopushanskyi, Director of the FBU's Information Technology and Marketing Department, commented on the life-long disqualification of former Cherkasy Monkeys coach Artem Slipenchuk and Zaporizhzhia youth national team player Artem Pokoienko to Tribuna.com.

"The FBU's Executive Committee made this decision on lifetime disqualification, and it did so solely on the rights and principles in accordance with the reality. Just like that, both Artem and the other left the location of the national and youth national teams of Ukraine, respectively, without providing any information to either the Basketball Federation of Ukraine or the coaches. As far as we know, and as far as the reports of the coaches of these teams indicate.

Now we are talking about the case of the national team of Ukraine - people, defending the honor of our national flag, simply turned around and ran away from the location of the national teams. It's just horrible. As a citizen of Ukraine, I have my own thoughts and opinions about this act. Personallye I think this is unacceptable. At a time like this, we have to consolidate our efforts: either defend our country or work and pay taxes in our country, rather than turn around and leave. Obviously, the only exceptions are people with many children and people aged 60 and older.

Some people are scared, tired of the reality, but, sorry, this is how we have been living for the last two and a half years and this is how we have to live until there is peace. Otherwise, how can we look into the eyes of those who are on the front line? I think it's just arbitrary. I also traveled outside of Ukraine a number of times to organize nominally home matches of the national team, but I always returned, as it should be in any case. Well, apparently, someone got scared. It turns out that Slipenchuk left with Volodymyr Koniev, the national team captain returned, and the coach left the team's location and went to Asia. Well, that's cool.

Absolutely all members of the FBU's Executive Committee supported this opinion to one degree or another, as evidenced by the vote. I personally believe that the right decision was made. I am surprised by some of the comments that appeared online, on Facebook and Instagram, under the posts about the disqualification. It is a shame. It turns out that the authors of these comments, who condemn the federation, believe that it is normal to just run away from the Ukrainian national team.

As for the situation of how everyone goes abroad, everything is quite simple: the Basketball Federation of Ukraine submits its petition to the Ministry of Youth and Sports, the national team leaves, accordingly, writes notes and then returns to Ukraine. During the summer matches of the national team, various youth tournaments, and so on, hundreds of Ukrainian basketball players went abroad. And hundreds returned. During this period, during the summer, when the largest number of trips were made, only two did not return. It is clear that there was a petition to the Executive Committee on what to do with this, how to move forward, and the Executive Committee made this decision by voting.

It's a shame because both the young player and the coach left. As for the young player, it's probably more about his upbringing because we all remember very well how during the season this basketball player [Pokoienko] came to a press conference and started talking to journalists in Russian. I am not saying that he is some kind of collaborator, absolutely not, there is no reason to talk about it. But here I have questions about this guy's upbringing. And this was confirmed this summer," Lopushanskyi said.

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