So Myron Markevych has dramatically left the post of head coach of the Ukrainian national football team in protest at Kharkiv Metalist being deducted 9 points for alleged match rigging. The other team said to be involved in the fixing, Lviv Karpaty, is also a club which Markevych has coached. In fact, he was the Metalist coach for the game in April 2008 which ended 4-0 in favor of the Kharkiv side. Both clubs have also being fined $US25,000 and all Karpaty players had penalties of $US5,000 to $US10,000 imposed by the Football Federation over the controversial game.
Markevych was not implicated in the case, but said that he had "no moral right to work for an organisation that is deliberately destroying Kharkiv football". "The Football Federation of Ukraine has completely discredited itself," he said, adding he would coach Metalist again. The federation also gave life bans to Metalist director Yevhen Krasnikov and Karpaty defender Sergei Lashchenkov. But in his comments Markevych directly pointed the finger at Hryhoriy Surkis, the head of the FFU, who hired him for the post of national coach.
But this turn of events comes at a time of optimism for football in the country, with the national team riding high after several good wins in friendly matches and preparations in full swing for staging the Euro-2012 football championships. Surkis will now have to look for a successor to the highly-rated Markevych, who was in his post for only about three months.   
What these latest events show is the perennial problem of officials having other interests which can be prejudicial and using their powers to protect or expand interests. We have seen this with Security Service of Ukraine chief Valeriy Khoroshkovskiy. A private media holding controlled by him is in dispute with private TV channels 5 Kanal and TVi over redistribution of frequencies. In this case Surkis, although head of the FFU, has had strong connections with Dynamo Kyiv and his brother is an owner of the club. They could be accused of acting unfairly against two strong competitor clubs.
The irony is that Metalist players say they will refuse to play for the national team as a mark of protest. But who would they be hurting, Surkis or the national team? Surely, first and foremost, the national team. It would be better for them to fight to get rid of Surkis or initiate a clean-up of the game. Unfortunately, the heart of the problem is corruption and fair play or, rather, the lack of fair play. Making an example of Karpaty and Metalist, if the allegations are true, is hardly likely to act as a deterrent until a widespread investigation of corruption in Ukrainian football has been undertaken. And getting rid of Surkis, who is after all, credited for getting Ukraine the chance to hold Euro-2012, and would likely only exacerbate the behind-the-scenes fight between several big clubs and their magnate owners for control of football and its revenue streams.