FFU's first vice president: Three quarters of FFU's organizations demand early congress

Kyiv, January 14 (Interfax-Ukraine) – First Vice President of the Football Federation of Ukraine (FFU) Serhiy Storozhenko will forward documents to UEFA and FIFA with decisions taken by most regional organizations of the FFU on the need to hold an extraordinary congress of the federation.

"Undoubtedly, the position of the 38 [regional organizations] will be brought to the attention of senior UEFA management... Of course, I'll send all of these documents to UEFA and FIFA," he said at a press conference at Interfax-Ukraine in Kyiv on Friday.

Storozhenko also said that he would submit the respective decisions directly to the leadership of the federation. He noted that all of the decisions had been taken by a majority, in line with law and statutes. These decisions, he said, apart from the demand to convene the congress, also concern the need to consider the issue of passing a vote of confidence or no confidence in FFU President Hryhoriy Surkis.

He said that it was necessary to inform international organizations about such decisions in order to demonstrate the existing opinion in the country, which differs from the official position of the leadership of the federation. He expressed confidence that this would by no means affect the state of the country's preparations for the finals of the Euro 2012 European Football Championship.

Surkis earlier closed a meeting of the 12th FFU congress, which failed to vote for the adoption of the agenda. The issue of confidence in Surkis was not put on the agenda of the FFU congress, in spite of heated debate during the meeting. A statement was then posted on the Web site of the federation that 24 of the 49 regional organizations supported the actions of Surkis.