By Andrew Warshaw
December 28 – Ukraine have overlooked former England manager Sven-Goran Eriksson and opted for one of their own as national team successor to Oleg Blokhin who resigned in late September.
The country’s football federation have appointed Mykhailo Fomenko (pictured), who has coached several domestic clubs, to try and restore some pride and help Ukraine qualify for the World Cup.
The move means Eriksson will not be able to lock horns once again with England who are in the same World Cup qualifying group.
Blokhin resigned after failing to lead the team out of the group stages at the European Championships, which Ukraine co-hosted with Poland. The task of restoring the nation’s pride now falls to Fomenko even though the far more widely travelled Eriksson was the favourite to take over.
Fomenko was the preferred candidate of the President of the Ukrainian Football Federation Ukraine Anatoliy Konkov . A vote by the executive committee saw him elected to the position unanimously. supports Fomenko, and after this he had been elected by ballot. All Executive Committee members took vote for this candidate.
Fomenko said: “I’d like to thanks Executive Committee of FFU and the President of Ukrainian Federation for their confidence. I completely understand the responsibility and issues. The top-priority is to qualify for FIFA World Cup 2014 in Brazil. In this case we must take the second place minimum in our group.”
Ukraine had previously approached former Tottenham Hotspur manager Harry Redknapp about the job which he probably would have taken, only for Queens Park Rangers to nip in at the last moment and offer him another chance of a return to the Premier League.
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