Swedish and Scottish football fans to save Minsk “Partizan”

As Euroradio has found out, fans of FC “Partizan” presented documents to register a civil association on February 17.

“Everything will be ready at the beginning of March. We will be registered. Everything will start then: there will be an entrance fee and membership fees of about 50 thousand roubles”, - explained head of the fan club of “Partizan” Leanid Pyatkevich to Euroradio.

According to him, a fund-raising campaign has been launched to help the new football club join the second league of the Belarusian football championship. European fans of “Partizan” are also expected to render assistance. Fans of Scottish “Celtic” and Swedish “Hammarby”, German “Babelsberg”, “St. Pauli” (Hambyrg) and Czech “Bohemians-1905” (Prague) also want to save the Minsk club.

The idea of creation of a football club is not that unreal. “Partizan” players have been training since Tuesday.

Leanid Pyatkevich: “Guys from other clubs also keep coming – from “Zorka” and BATE. There are also members of junior teams born in 1993-1994. They do not want to quit playing football and the level of the second league is higher that of a junior championship”.

They are training in the spare football pitch of “Tractor” now. Director-general of “Partizan” Lyudas Rumbutis has helped to get a legal address. On the whole, fans always consult him. Lyudas Rumbutis is looking for money to pay the players of the previous “Partizan”. He has not considered his activities after the liquidation of the club yet.

Lyudas Rumbutis: “They have been dismissed but we have not paid them yet. I may just resign but it would be a wrong thing to do to the people. Let me do it at first and then we will see. I have not been on vacations for 4 years, I need rest”.

Interestingly, presenter of the programme “Football Time” Mikalai Hadasevich does not believe that Minsk fans will be able to restore the club.

Mіkalai Hadasevіch: “The fact that they are going to find 70 millions is only the first step. Then they will need to organize training sessions, find coaches, organize trips, find buses and so on. It requires good financing that can be provided by a big enterprise”.

Mikalai Hadasevich wonders why the Football Federation did nothing to leave 12 teams in the Higher League although it knew about the financial problems of “Partizan”.

Mikalai Hadasevich: “They could have prepared somehow to avoid a championship with only 11 teams, uneven calendar and numerous problems that would appear during the season”.

Let us remind you that Minsk “Partizan” won bronze medals at the Belarusian Championship twice and won the Cup twice. The club had to celebrate its 10^th anniversary this year.

Photo by: goals.by