Football club Kryvbas has asked UEFA to replace Turkish referee Arda Kardeshler, who was appointed for the first match of the 2024/25 Conference League playoffs against Spanish Betis.
Match Kryvbas — Betis in the Conference League is scheduled for August 22 in the Slovak city of Kosice.
Kryvbas asks UEFA to replace the referee
As the club explained, the reason for such a request was that this referee officiated a friendly match between the team of the aggressor country Russia and the Serbian national team in Moscow in March 2024.
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— Therefore, we consider it unacceptable to involve Arda Kardeshler in officiating a match involving a Ukrainian football club, — the press service reported.
They recalled that a full-scale war with the Russian Federation has been going on in Ukraine for the third year already. Despite the war, Ukraine holds football competitions at all levels. This became possible thanks to the Ukrainian military, who courageously defend our country, protecting it from the Russian occupiers.
— The refereeing of our international match by a referee who refereed a match with the participation of Russians, and directly in Russia, discredits our entire club in front of all the fans of Kryvbas, among whom there are many military personnel who are now defending our country from Russian attacks, as well as in front of all of Ukraine, which is suffering from the military aggression of the Russians, — the report says.
The club noted that they also informed the Ukrainian Football Association and the UAF Referees Committee about this and added that they believe that common sense will prevail.
Kryvbas ended up in the Conference League after being eliminated from the Europa League qualification by Czech Viktoria. Yuriy Vernydub's team twice lost to their opponents by a narrow margin – 1:2 and 0:1.
