“Dear players, these are not your words.” FBU President replied to Prometheus

Chairman of the FBU Mikhail Brodsky In response to a letter from Prometheus, he clarified the situation to the players and also warned them about the insecurity of contracts:

“Dear National Team players, we respect you very much and have always taken your opinions into account. Today, not with your personal letter openly with me, but Mr. Dubinsky, owner of Prometheus, which is more important than the development of Ukrainian basketball and Ukrainian basketball for three years, more important than his own passions” You have contacted another text from players and coaches. Another confirmation of this is the time each of you played in the last match of the 7DaysEuroCup commercial tournament. Let alone against the best team in Europe (Litkabelis) in the match, while spending an average of 8 minutes per game on the field, foreigners his coach gave each of the legionnaires 25 minutes to play. As head of the FBU this does not suit me, we do not need victories in 7DaysEuroCup, we need national team players to progress. Please note that Shakhtar plays in the Champions League and only shows the results of Ukrainian players And Stephens, to this player With all due respect, it bothers me when he says he’s playing for Ukraine, to put it mildly, he’s playing for $500,000 at a time when Ukraine is at war.

You know like no one else how difficult it was when I came to FBU in 2015. At the same time, we began to develop and popularize basketball, and together we were able to take a qualitative step forward. Because of the war, it has been incredibly difficult to find the opportunity to represent Ukraine in the international arena with our 16 teams in the last six months. But we also managed to do it together! And together we managed to get into the top 11 teams of Europe in the last European Championship.

To this day, Mr. Dubinsky has felt like a big basketball boss who, despite his earlier promise, was able to shake money, bribe Ukrainian clubs with his hands in difficult times, and discredit the federation in front of FIBA ​​by playing in the commercial league. Playing in the Champions League. By the way, given the current composition of the participants in this tournament, Prometheus would definitely play in the Champions League without qualifying matches. Yes, a direct place was not guaranteed, but according to club ratings and the current structure of the league, they would have played there without the qualification they feared. This was probably understood at the club, but they used their opportunity to discredit us. And that’s not even the ugly thing, that the club takes 5-7 million euros abroad to participate in a commercial tournament, with 70 percent of the playing time on the site being played by foreign players. Who is this for? For Latvian basketball fans? For foreign legionnaires and coaches? There is only one answer – for the ambitions of Mr. Dubinsky.

I’ve been in basketball for 30 years and how much money I have made for Ukrainian basketball and Ukrainian children. People like Vanya Tkachenko know this. And as a result, in the Eurocup, Ginzburg takes 5 minutes from the coach. And a key player in this team! I do not like it!

In such facts, I see absolutely nothing terrible in the bid contribution to the Ukrainian championship for Prometheus in the amount of 4.5 million hryvnia, which will go to support the Ukrainian clubs. In such a situation, we could help the clubs in difficult times and prevent the money from taking over them, because before that Dubinsky wanted to bribe three teams of the Ukrainian championship and, according to our information, promised them 12 million. As a result, “Prometheus” did not pay for participation in the Ukrainian Championship. He didn’t even pay the 40,000 that other clubs paid. Unfortunately, this club will miss at least one Ukrainian season. In fact, he wanted to play in the Ukrainian Championship with his second squad, more precisely twice the Khimik he had attracted to him in the summer. By the way, after the final decision, the contracts of these players are not preserved, the players themselves can move to another club if they wish, but unlike Prometheus, no one will force the player to do anything – they have the right.

More information about the children’s school. Students of Dnipro, Cherkasy Mavp, Khimika and BC Kyiv schools signed the letter of the collections, which are currently performing at Prometheus and last 8 minutes at Eurocup, but where is Prometheus? Moreover, in Ukrainian basketball this club does not have a single student, because the school itself, which is written in the letter, was founded a month ago. For three years we asked Dubinsky to start a school and he said this was not the right time. I’m glad that at least something from this conflict has had a positive outcome and that the children from Slobozhansky will be able to play basketball. I hope the leaders of Prometheus can give at least 10% of the club’s budget to the children’s school, as I have for decades in Cherkassy, ​​Kondratiev in Dnipro, Nazarenko in Yuzhny.

And finally, the main thing that worries players is your licenses. The Ukrainian Basketball Federation cannot physically deprive and take away players from their licenses, as all Prometheus players were licensed by other national federations after the start of the war. According to FIBA ​​rules, Prometheus was required to first receive sending letters from other federations for each player (which he did during the summer) and then send a list of players to the FBU in order to obtain the appropriate licenses. The right to play in the Ukrainian Championship. “Prometheus” did not do this, because he refused to participate in the Ukrainian Championship. Therefore, not all Prometheus players are licensed by FBU players, despite having suspended player status. Therefore, the question about player licenses should not be directed to the President of the FBU, the Minister of Youth and Sports of Ukraine or the Ukrainian basketball community, but to Mr. Dubinsky personally. Your possibility of further performance in the Latvian-Estonian League is under the jurisdiction of the League, not the FBU, and must be regulated by the relevant rules of the League.

We’ve also been moving towards openness for years, requiring clubs to open contracts with players and pay taxes. Dubinsky ignored this, now we will not let him go, we will let him report to the community, only after that we can return to the dialogue with Prometheus.

Otherwise, that’s the point in the relationship between Prometheus and Ukrainian basketball. We gave the club almost two months, but instead of being constructive, we received a dialogue with distorted facts as well as ultimatums from a letter signed by the players. Europe has already experienced similar cases in Greece, when Olympiakos missed two seasons due to disagreement in the league, Dubinsky also decided to go against the Federation. We will not and do not want to offend anyone, just one club cannot dictate terms to everyone. Now that there are 8 clubs in the Super League without Dubinsky, 17 teams in the Premier League and 15 in the Women’s League, we will be able to hold the Ukrainian Championship long enough without Prometheus, which has found itself in a different reality.

And finally, I want to warn Prometheus players, today their contracts are not protected, if suddenly Dubinsky stops paying under these contracts, FBU and FIBA ​​cannot affect it.