RE: 🥴 Splitting Personalities (💭, ⚽, 🏆)
He needs to leave in my opinion.
I completely agree.
When you said about the speed of the game in the English league, I realized that's it. We do not have such speeds. Even in Italy or Spain, Ukrainian players can play, because there half the match the players just pass the ball to each other.
Shakhtar Donetsk and Dynamo Kyiv have been playing worse in recent seasons due to reduced competition in the domestic championship. Although the budget, for example, Shakhtar Donetsk is not less than the top European clubs.
Nobody likes the corruption
Corruption is a painful topic in Ukraine. Society has long demanded change, people have even died for it. But change takes a long time because of fierce resistance.
Significant shifts towards reducing corruption are already visible in the life of the average person. But when it comes to big business, everything changes dramatically.
From the little I know, one of the reason Shakhtar Donetsk have done so well in the past is because they're got so much money and can afford to pay ridiculous wages. Like you say - by killing off the competition domestically, they're not ready to compete in Europe - as we see in Scotland with Rangers and Celtic (who used to do well in Europe).
It must've been 10 years ago that I had that conversation and there was a resignation in the person I was talking to. Stopping it would obviously be more successful if it were the big businesses that lead the way but they're the ones that have the most to lose (especially on the international stage where other (western) countries are less likely to "play the game") - As seen in Russia's and Qatar's successful World Cup "campaigns".
It's much easier to punish a man on the street for bribery than a massive corporation.
But like you say, change takes time and hopefully your homeland's heading in the right direction.
Shakhtar Donetsk is the richest football club in Ukraine. And this despite the fact that Ukraine has lost Donetsk for 7 years. All because the owner of Shakhtar is the richest Ukrainian, who earned his money in a completely unfair way.
This shows that corruption cannot be completely eradicated in any country. But you can greatly reduce its level. Anti-corruption mechanisms have already been set up in my country, but they are not working properly. However, we have a strong civil society, which reveals the facts of corruption and raises a scandal in the press. This is still the most effective mechanism.
From the little I've read, this is confused in itself - we still recognise it as part of the Ukraine but my knowledge of the subject won't even be close to yours!
I hope things work with the fight against corruption but it's everywhere in various forms. The press itself has its own biases and I wouldn't be surprised if the bits that don't get printed are far worse than what does!
That's true.