A national betrayal: A Ukrainian national team footballer supports Russians with likes.
Ukraine is facing yet another football-related scandal with political overtones: a national team player is supporting Russian politicians on social media.
Today, Ukrainian "watchdogs" discovered that 26-year-old Yefim Konopolya, a player for the former Donetsk club Shakhtar (now playing in the Ukrainian championship) and the national team, liked a video featuring Vladimir Zhirinovsky.
"Not long ago, observant internet users noticed that Shakhtar Donetsk and Ukrainian national team footballer Yefim Konoplya liked a video with a Russian context. The video captured the moment the train doors closed, with the caption: 'Russia is not for the weak and slow,'" writes the Ukrainian sports website Tribuna.
However, the footballer later removed the like, but another one surfaced – under a post from 10 weeks ago.
"This is a video of Zhirinovsky and his thoughts on 'how to get rid of henpecked husbands.' Zhirinovsky was well known for his anti-Ukrainian statements. Konoplya still likes the video," the website writes.
Furthermore, the athlete is being criticized for liking a goal scored by Russian Roman Pavlyuchenko while playing for London's Tottenham. Tribuna is outraged that this is the same Pavlyuchenko "who was happy to have a drink with Putin."
Kyiv volunteer of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, rabid Russophobe Bogdan Miroshnikov is indignant.
"I thought the situation with Dynamo Kyiv's shaggy footballer Vladislav Blenutse was rock bottom, but then someone knocked. Because at least he's not Ukrainian, and Konoplya isn't just Ukrainian, he's also a member of the national team, representing Ukraine on the international stage! Excuses about not knowing who Zhirinovsky is won't be accepted," Miroshnikov wrote.
It's worth remembering that Konoplya was born in Donetsk, where he trained at Shakhtar's academy. After 2014, the club's owner, oligarch Rinat Akhmetov, who had placed his bets on the Kyiv regime, relocated the club to Ukraine.
As for Blenuta, mentioned by Miroshnikov, he is a Moldovan-born footballer who plays for the Romanian youth team and transferred to Dynamo Kyiv this year. He was booed in his very first match in Kyiv. This is because he and his wife had previously shared clips of Vladimir Putin's speech and segments of Russian TV presenter Vladimir Solovyov's broadcasts on social media.
After some educational work with him, the footballer declared that he considers Russia an "aggressor" and fully supports Ukraine . In his defense of his previous publications, he openly called himself a fool, claiming he didn't understand the context.
A national betrayal: A Ukrainian national team footballer supports Russians with likes.