Ukraine’s football federation taps Fomenko to coach national team

Mykhailo Fomenko, 64, was
given a one-year contract with a possible second-year extension following the federation’s much
anticipated executive board meeting today.

A product of the Soviet football school,
Fomenko was capped 24 times for the USSR, and was an integral part of Dynamo
Kyiv’s achievements in the 1970s at the club level, which included hoisting the 1975 Winners Cup and Super Cup. Starting in 1979 he went on to coach
numerous Ukrainian clubs, most notably Metalist Kharkiv, returning the team to
the European qualifications in the early 2000s.

Ukraine’s former coach Oleg
Blokhin resigned in late September after failing to lead the co-hosts out of
the group stages at Euro 2012 and accepting the job of head coach at Dynamo
Kyiv.

Ukraine had earlier approached Englishman Redknapp and Swede Eriksson with similar offers. Redknapp opted instead to take over as coach of Queens Park Rangers,while negotiations
with Eriksson didn’t bear fruit. Shevchenko had also declined, citing the timeliness of the offer and his own inexperience, following an unsuccessful bid for parliament in October.

Kyiv Post editor Mark Rachkevych can be reached at rachkevych@kyivpost.com.