It is not surprising that European championship attracts huge interest of foreign journalists. you even can meet Japanese journalists in Kharkiv, it is not surprising because football is very popular in Japan. But if I come across Canadians in Poland, I did not expect, because everyone knows that this kind of sport is not popular in the homeland of ice-hokey.
Before the match Holland-Denmark, middle-aged 2-meter man hardly found his place in press-box and Italian journalist who was sitting there had to change the seat, because as it was appeared he took the seat by mistake.
Before starting the match and during the match, the journalist sitting next to me was busy with sending and reading the messages. Time by time was watching the match, if he was missing anything he was watching these episodes at the monitor on the desk. In the first half, when Robin van Persie was to score and could not he asked me – who kicked? I asked him where he was from and asked me that he was Canadian and his name was Michael. As it appeared, he was the journalists of “Toronto Sun” and with his four colleagues he was sent in Ukraine-Poland to work on European championship. After that he went on messaging and I was not surprised at all that he was not watching the match carefully. Where is Canada and where is football.
Italian mass-media works on European championship hard and that’s why there are a lot of Italian journalists as well as photo-reporters in Kharkiv. I met one of them, his name is Massimo, he is a reporter of “Curriere Delo Sport”. He could not find point for switching on his note-book and asked me to help. I explained him where it was but could not find it under the desk and again asked me where it was. When I found it for him, looked at my accreditation card and shouted “Georgia” and shook me hand, it goes without saying that I named at once him Kakha Kaladze, he picked up his thumb and said – yes, he is a good player. Afterwards he asked me: “he has gone to Politics?” and I nodded.
One of the journalists of Ukrainian publication showed interest with situation in Georgian football and then he talked to me about the situation in sport in his country. According to him, before the “Orange Revolution”, local government used to provide all the necessary terms to sportsmen and the businessmen who used to invest money in football had some privilege. After the revolution, as he explained Yulia Timoshenko’s government did not use to pay attention to sport and that why a lot of sportsmen gained citizenship of Russia. Besides this, privilege of football clubs was annulled. But after Yanukovich’s ruling, as he said, the government again started to pay attention to sportsmen. As for Ukrainian football Super League, if we believe his words, there is competition only between the presidents of “Shakhtar” and “Dnypro”- Rinat Akhmetov and Igor Kolomoisk. The only man who is standing separately is the president of “Metalists” of Kharkiv – Alexandr Yaroslavsk. As he told to me, besides “Shakhtar”, “Metallurh” of Donetsk, “Illichevets” of Mariupolis, “Zorya” of Luhansk and “Sevstoplo” in the first league belongs to Akhmetov. These clubs officially have other presidents, but the main sponsor is Akhmetov. As for Kolomoisk, besides “Dnypro”, “Dinamo” Kiev, “Kryvbas” of Kryvyi Rih, “Volyn” of Lutsk,, “Arsenal” of Kiev and “Metalurh” of Zaporozhie belong to him. To tell the truth, I was surprised when he mentioned “Dinamo”, but he assured me that it is right. I did not have any choice, had to believe with him.
Behavior of Russian fans during the match between Holland-Denmark must be mentioned. Unexpectedly they started shouting “Russia, Russia”. Of course, Ukrainians reacted on it and started “Ukraine, Ukraine”. So, during the match periodically were shouted the names of four countries.
Above I mentioned photo-reporters and I noticed one interesting episode during the match. One of them was carrying such a big photo-camera that it was impossible to see him. I remembered, photographers of “World Sport” and it has to be mentioned that if they had chance to attend such tournaments, I am sure they would take better photos.

 

 Lasha Tabagri, special correspondent of “World Sport” from Kharkiv