Werbov praised Voronkov’s return to the league after a racist scandal

The head coach of the Kazan volleyball “Zenith” Alexei Verbov admitted that he did not know the details of the scandal involving the ex-coach of the Kaliningrad “Locomotive” Andrey Voronkov, but considers a one-year suspension a serious punishment.

On May 12, 2022, during a timeout in the fifth match of the final series of the Russian championship with Uralochka, Voronkov, giving an instruction to his players, pulled Valery Zaitseva aside and said: “Why are you catching this monkey again?” The phrase hit the air “Match TV”. At that moment, the Cuban Ailama Sese Montalvo, who later left the club, was on the court as part of the team from the Sverdlovsk region.

— To be honest, I did not go into the details of this story. You can say something emotionally. But in my mind, you just need to apologize, because emotions are one thing. And in a calm situation, if you have already lost your temper, then apologize if you offended someone. As far as I know, he did. I did not talk to him, did not ask how this situation happened. If he apologized, then a year of disqualification is a serious period, even more than. If not, then that’s another story.

It also depends on upbringing – on many factors. There are those who believe that he did nothing, such cases happened – and not only with Andrei Gennadievich. Others believe that his words were hooked, but the person himself does not think so. Because the context was completely different. Complex issue. But my upbringing says that if you did something, and someone thought that you offended someone, then it is never difficult to say a few words and apologize, even if it was not worth it. It won’t rust behind me,” Verbov told the “Championship”.

After the scandal, the executive committee of the VFV disqualified Voronkov for two years. On May 3, 2023, it became known that the second year of disqualification was replaced with a suspended one, so Voronkov can return to coaching now. On the same day, Voronkov, in an interview with Match TV, stated that he was not a racist and made a sincere public apology to Montalvo, whom he did not want to offend.