We, the players of basketball club “Prometey”, would like to openly addressed the President of the Basketball Federation of Ukraine, Mr. Mykhailo Yuriyovych Brodskyi, the Minister of Youth and Sports of Ukraine Vadym Markovych Gutsait and the whole basketball community.
Everyone knows the situation with the Bsketball Federation's mandatory fee for the basketball club “Prometey” needed for the participation in the Ukrainian Championship, which is 4.5 million hryvnias. At the same time, this fee for the rest of the clubs is just 40 thousand hryvnias. The president of the club Volodymyr Dubynskyi, as well as the players of our team, spoke publicly about it in the big interview. However, there was no response from the FBU and the fee was not reduced for “Prometey”. Such actions of the federation threaten the sports career of the twelve young players of our club, who are now forced to skip the next season, despite the fact that they are completely ready to start the season as they started preparation for it back in August.
At the same time, despite the tough times for the country, “Prometey” has opened own basketball school and provided many children the opportunity to learn how to play basketball in a new sports hall with modern equipment. Also, the club supports young Ukrainian basketball players, who are in Riga now as they have been forced to leave Ukraine due to the Russian military aggression.
We would like to draw your attention to the fact that the general sponsor of “Prometey”, the company “Budinvest Engineering” was also the sponsor of the Ukrainian National team in the last qualification games for the World Cup.
Yesterday, a letter from FBU arrived in the mailbox of the Latvian-Estonian league, saying that “Prometey” did not pay the fee for the participation in the 2022/2023 season of the Ukrainian Championship. And FBU automatically revoked the players’ licences.
As players, who have been playing for the Ukrainian National team for many years, we would like to know and understand how it can be possible in a civilized world. All club’s players have already registred in the Latvian-Estonian league and have already played two official games. Does that mean that players of BC “Prometey” are not permitted to take part in the Latvian-Estonian league as well?
We are Ukrainian athletes, we are only eager to play under the Ukrainian flag, to prove to the entire world our indomitability, to glorify our country on European arenas and we cannot understand why we are being made into a bargaining chip! We strive for just one thing – to represent Ukraine and play for Ukraine!
We ask you to figure out the situation, settle the issue at hand and make a fair decision that will, first of all, benefit Ukrainian basketball and entire Ukraine in general.
We strongly believe that it is no use to anyone if “Prometey” doesn’t not participate in the Championship of Ukraine and doesn’t represent our country in the European arena. At a time when the entire country is uniting, when everyone for their own part demonstrates desire for our common victory over the enemy, we ask to settle this issue in favour of Ukrainian basketball”.
Sincerely, players of the basketball club “Prometey”
Denys Lukashov
Illia Sydorov
Ivan Tkachenko
Issuf Sanon
Oleksandr Lypovyy
Viacheslav Petrov
