“Veres” National Club considers it necessary to express its own official position regarding the match of the fifteenth round of the championship of the Ukrainian Premier League against Kharkiv Metalist 1925, which ended early yesterday due to lighting problems at the Central City Stadium in Zhytomyr.
1. WHAT HAPPENED?
In the nearly four years since the full-scale invasion began, not a single match at Zhytomyr’s Central City Stadium has been disrupted by lighting problems. People’s club “Veres” has information that on the day of the game on December 7, 2025, there were no power outages at this address either. That is, there were NO EXCLUSIONS.
This indicates that the organizers of the match are responsible for overloading the power lines, which caused the voltage surge and the breakdown of the machines. This has nothing to do with power outages. And therefore, this case does not in any way fall under the definition of “force majeure”, which is currently operated by part of the media and the blogosphere.
2. CHRONOLOGY OF EVENTS:
Power outages at the stadium began even before the scheduled start of the game. As a result, the start of the match had to be delayed for more than ten minutes. The organizers of the meeting undertook to eliminate the malfunctions and the teams went to the football field.
At the ninth minute of the meeting, the lights went out again. The referee of the match Vitaliy Romanov invited the players to the locker room. And after about a ten-minute break, the teams once again returned to the game.
During the next eight minutes of play, the power went out three more times. After that, referee Vitaly Romanov again invited the teams to the locker rooms. At this time, representatives of both clubs, referees and delegates of the UAF gathered to discuss the situation.
People’s club “Veres” received an offer to go on the field again after eliminating all malfunctions and play this match. The sports director of the “red and black” Yuriy Gabovda agreed to go to the meeting with the hosts, because the representatives of “Metalista 1925” assured that they would eliminate the problem.
The referee of the match announced in the presence of everyone: if the problem repeats, the game will not be continued. And there was no talk of finishing the game the next day, or any other day. No such proposals were made at that time. Less than three minutes after the restart, the lights went out again.
3. GENERATOR
A backup power supply, necessary for holding matches in wartime conditions, was also not ready. After turning on the generator, it turned out that it could not ensure the operation of the scoreboard and the VAR system. Even after that, the “Veres” football club was ready to play and for the third time our team took to the football field. Until the power went out again.
4. CONCLUSION
People’s club “Veres” believes that full responsibility for the disruption of the match on December 7 lies with its organizers. And taking into account all of the above, we consider the speculations about the war and the difficult situation in the country’s energy system, which began to spread in the media, to be inappropriate.
We emphasize that our club did everything possible to continue the game. “Veres” is ready to play, as evidenced by our third appearance on the football field. But now the club is waiting for the decision of the KDC, which should be fair and about the same conditions for all clubs of the Ukrainian Premier League.”
Source: sport.ua