Oleksandr Khatskevich, Getty images 08 December 2025, 18:52

The vice-president of Zhytomyr Polissia Oleksandr Khatskevich criticized the referees of the match of the 15th round of the UPL against Lviv Rukh (0:1). His words are quoted by the official website of “Wolves”.

“The referee destroyed football. Denys Reznikov influenced the outcome of the game by his actions. He surpassed the entire game, tactics, teams, football players, coaches and himself determined what the score would be in the match.

Let’s just break down the elimination episode. Already at the 11th minute, he removes our player. Andrievsky fights for the ball, there is no excessive force or stiffness in his movement, and the foot moves down towards the ball. This episode in football is called “stepping”. And this is a maximum yellow card. These are not my words – these are recommendations from world-class referees. This is confirmed by the Italian arbitration consultant of the UAF, Nicola Rizzoli. In the match LNZ — Kudrivka, there was a similar, but much more difficult episode, when the LNZ player steps on the opponent’s leg from behind. But even then, Rizzoli says it’s a yellow card.

There are similar moments in every championship. But Reznikov goes against all the rules and gives a red card in the 11th minute. But even if he is so unfamiliar with the rules, then how to explain the moment in the 42nd minute, when similarly the player Ruhu Edson does the same “stepping” on the leg of our footballer? Attention: he did not even give a yellow. How does it happen? In similar episodes, radically different solutions. Reznikov behaved bipolar or simply killed our team.

I have been in football all my life, so I feel these things. But in this case, the arbitrariness of the judges is so obvious that the level of arrogance amazes even me,” Khatskevich said.