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The transition of the Shakhtar midfielder to Zenit at the beginning of 2007 for a record in the post-Soviet space The transfer amount of 14.5 million euros caused a great stir. The St. Petersburg club gave the newcomer a luxurious presentation, and Anatoly Timoshchuk immediately won the sympathy of journalists in the northern capital, answering any questions.
Tymoshchuk was not going to renounce Ukraine
The author of these notes then asked the football player if he was going to become the face of any of the Ukrainian political parties. Fortunately, the biography is suitable: a graduate of Lutsk “Volyn”, in Western Ukraine, the national champion as part of the Donetsk “Shakhtar”, the leader of the national team, who showed himself in this capacity almost from his debut match as part of the “zhovto-blakitnye”.
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Tymoshchuk then replied: “I try to stay away from politics. My business is to play football.” Just because you are not interested in politics, this does not mean that politics will not be interested in you. This phrase is attributed to the Athenian statesman, orator and general Pericles. For our days it is very relevant. No matter how hard Tymoshchuk tried, politics overtook him.
The Zenit coach never renounced his homeland. After Andrei Shevchenko left the national team, he became the captain of the Zhovto-Blakit team. Having made his debut in the Ukrainian national team in 2000, he ended his career in the summer of 2016. In 2011, Tymoshchuk was recognized as the best football player in the history of Ukraine. Wearing the captain's armband, he led his team to Euro 2016.
They hated him at home
A real campaign was launched in Ukraine with calls not to bring the Zenit captain into the national team, and in order to play at the European Championship, Anatoly moved to Kairat Almaty. The St. Petersburg club reacted to this with understanding. The visit of the captain of the Ukrainian team to hospitals where ATO participants were treated (as those who fought for many years in the ranks of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and terrorist formations in Donbass) did not cause a negative reaction in St. Petersburg.
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After finishing his playing career, Tymoshchuk joined the Zenit coaching staff, and this caused real hysteria in Ukraine. The best player in Ukrainian football was accused of all terrible sins. They even published a fake with an allegedly signed obligation to cooperate with the FSB. The producers of this “document” did not even think about whether the Russian special services needed the secrets of Zenit tactics, which the captain of the “blue-white-blue” owned. And the Ukrainian “fighters for a just cause” failed to produce a plausible document. For some reason, Tymoshchuk’s signature on it is in Ukrainian, and the signature of FSB Director Alexander Bortnikov is on the letterhead of the St. Petersburg branch. You should work harder, gentleman!
The Lutsk City Council deprived the ex-captain of the Ukrainian national team of the title of honorary citizen of the city, and in January Vladimir Zelensky signed a decree to include Tymoshchuk in the sanctions list. This provides for the blocking of all assets in Ukraine belonging to the Zenit coach, a ban on entering the country, conducting trade operations and withdrawing capital outside the state. It is forbidden for the Zenit coach to buy land plots on the “independence” territory. Although he is unlikely to even have such a desire.
Former partners on the Ukrainian national team, for whom just recently Tymoshchuk was an unquestioned authority, now say that for them he is simply dead. This is exactly how Andrei Yarmolenko put it in a recent interview. The Ukrainian Football Association decided to strike the final blow. Back in March, the UAF CDC stripped Tymoshchuk of all sports titles, expelled him from the register of national team players and banned him for life from engaging in football-related activities on the territory of Ukraine. According to Ukrainian sources, UAF leaders took measures to deprive Tymoshchuk of state awards and a PRO-UEFA coaching license.
It is interesting that, along with the Order “For Courage”, which Tymoshchuk was awarded for high sports results at the 2006 World Cup and, as stated in the decree, “For demonstrated courage, dedication and the will to win, as well as affirmation of the international authority of Ukraine” and personal firearms weapons, awarded in the fall of 2015, again, for raising the international authority of the Ukrainian state, among Tymoshchuk’s awards was the title of Honored Worker of Physical Culture and Sports of Ukraine. Anatoly received it in the summer of 2008…after he won the UEFA Cup with Zenit. Then in Kyiv this was also considered a confirmation of the international authority of Ukrainian football. It is curious that Tymoshchuk is a twice Honored Master of Sports. In 2005, he was awarded this title in Ukraine, and in 2008 – in Russia.
Protection of rights in court
The current leaders of Ukrainian football have an interesting logic. They want to take away from Tymoshchuk the victories and titles that he earned with sweat and blood twenty years ago. As well as a coaching license, which formally they simply do not have the right to. One could, of course, turn a blind eye to the latest attempts by the Kyiv “patriots” to look like such in their own eyes. The decision of the UAF will not prevent Tymoshchuk from continuing to work on the Zenit coaching staff.
Only Anatoly himself decided to act in the legal field. First, he filed an appeal with the UAF, but, as one would expect, achieved nothing. The next step was to appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport. Zenit lawyers helped to draw up a competent claim, although the St. Petersburg club, naturally, is not a party to the process. This decision of the ex-captain of the Zhovto-Blakitny caused a new surge of rage in his homeland. Local media came out with the headlines: “A traitor to the motherland is suing Ukraine,” no more, no less.
In Ukraine, for some reason, they are confident that the CAS will approve the decision of the UAF. Although it defies common sense. How can a person be deprived of honestly earned awards and an honestly obtained coaching license just because he does not express views that are favorable to the current Kyiv authorities? Alas, politics caught up with Tymoshchuk, who carefully avoided it and in all the clubs for which he played, found a great common language with his partners.
Zenit has a good tradition: holding tournaments for children's teams of different ages at prizes from club legends — Yuri Morozov, Pavel Sadyrin, Vladimir Kazachenko. I would very much like this to include a tournament for the prizes of the Honored Master of Sports of Russia and Ukraine Anatoly Timoshchuk with the participation of Volyn Lutsk, Shakhtar Donetsk, Bayern Munich, Kairat Almaty and Zenit. And so that politicians do not interfere in football.