The president of FC Dynamo Kyiv Ihor Surkis spoke on ProFootball Digital after Dynamo’s 4:0 home victory over FC Epitsentr Kamianets-Podilskyi.
– We need to play 5-6 rounds to see where we are heading. The team won and kept a clean sheet which is very important. As for preparation it’s the same for everyone - all teams understand who is being relegated and who is fighting for prize places. Everyone understands that a lot is decided in these matches.
The pitch is not in good condition so we cannot play at high speed. We need to wait until it gets warmer. I’ve been told that in two or three weeks the pitch will be in normal condition. We run the heating system around the clock, maintain a temperature of 14–15 degrees and we have reseeded the field. Why it looks like this is a question for agronomists because the pitch at our training base is of very high quality and players are very satisfied with it.
– When did you realize something was wrong with the pitch?
– When we opened it. We heated the field exclusively using generators because we don’t have regular electricity supply. Even today we are working on generators. It would be wrong - I would even say immoral - to ask for electricity to be turned on for us when people are living without power for weeks. So we bought generators and used them to heat the field. That complicates the process as cables had to be connected to the generators. Perhaps we were about a week late. Again this is a question for agronomists. We’ve drawn conclusions and in the future we will do everything on time.
– The club’s general director said a lot of money was spent on the pitch…
– I understand. When money is spent there must be quality. The money is not spent by the general director but by the club. I was with the team at the training camp and perhaps did not personally oversee the process. I was told everything would be fine but the grass didn’t grow because during the last match before the winter break it was snowing, and we heavily watered the field - that was a request from the coaching staff working at the time. As a result the field was flooded and the grass didn’t grow.
There are reasons but I want to recall 1997 when Valeriy Lobanovskyi returned. It was also a severe winter. The field was opened and there was no grass. I remember Valeriy Vasylovych saying: “I don’t care about the grass. I care that the surface is smooth and that the ball doesn’t bounce”. Unfortunately, weather conditions - and what the enemy is doing - are not excuses. We should have monitored it more carefully.
– Recently there has been much discussion about the success of Norwegian club Bodø/Glimt and artificial pitches. Would that solve the problem of player preparation?
– I don’t understand why we would need artificial pitches. At our training base we have seven fields - all in good conditions. At the Dynamo stadium the pitch is partially synthetic, grass just needs to grow and it will be perfect.
– Does today’s 4:0 win not bring you much joy?
– Like everyone else I will look at the league table after the final round. Winning is good - it means there is progress, the team is playing differently and the mood is good - both at the training camp and here in Kyiv. You can see who is coming off the bench - Yarmolenko, Buialskii. That is obvious reinforcement. But they missed part of the training camp so Kostiuk selects players who are currently in better conditions. I understand that, and I hope Yarmolenko, Buialskii, Karavaiev and Tymchyk understand it too. But they can come on, make a difference and deliver results. We must give our young players experience - players like Redushko and Ponomarenko, who is scoring in every game, must play.
– Some people criticize you because a player with the surname Surkis made his debut for the first team…
– Let them criticize. There is a head coach - I never interfere in team selection. Viacheslav turned 20 today, the team was leading 4:0, and they gave him this gift. He will remember it for the rest of his life whether he plays for Dynamo Kyiv in the future or not. If he does play his level and quality must be 50 percent better than others because there will always be talk.
My son-in-law and my nephew both play for Dynamo so I understand the criticism will always be there. I am completely calm about it. These conversations do not interest me - all questions should be addressed to the coach. They are professional footballers. Kristian Bilovar, even though he became my son-in-law, joined Dynamo’s academy at 13 and progressed all the way to the first team. How he met my daughter - that’s a question for them. Perhaps if he were not my son-in-law he would still be playing for Dynamo. For now he is winning competition against other players. I do not tell Kostiuk to select my son-in-law. Believe me, his life will not get worse depending on whether he plays or not.
– Please comment on the absence of transfers.
– The foreign players who came to us and were worth something - for example Vitinho and Ramirez - could play for Dynamo but for some reasons they left. And Lonwijk whom we signed under Lucescu heard the first drone explosion that fell into the lake near the training base and got scared. At 3 a.m. his parents called me and said I had to let their son leave - and we let him go.
I will not sign foreign players just for the sake of numbers when we have our own young players, and block the path of Redushko, Ponomarenko and others. And I absolutely do not care what various journalists say. Let them not count my money. Everything is fine at Dynamo - everyone receives their salary on time. Today we employ 650 staff members plus players - everyone is satisfied. When the war ends everyone will see everything.
