May 12 – The highest-ranking official in Ukrainian football is under fresh scrutiny regarding millions of dollars in development money paid to his national federation.
Ukrainian FA president Andriy Pavelko, a member of UEFA’s executive committee, is reported to have co-operated with an apparent UEFA investigation into his conduct.
A leaked letter to FIFA ethics chief Maria Claudia Rojas was published on Twitter by a magazine writer in Switzerland and confirmed by The Associated Press.
Pavelko stated in the letter that he had corresponded with investigators from UEFA since September 2018 but that Rojas had no jurisdiction because the case was “not directly related to FIFA matters.”
“It is in fact directly related to a UEFA matter – specifically the use of UEFA funding and an alleged threat against a journalist regarding allegations about the use of such UEFA funding,” Pavelko wrote to Rojas in the letter dated October 2019.
“I am more than happy to keep you apprised of any and all developments in the UEFA investigation and Swiss court proceedings.”
The probe into Pavelko has been kept under the radar but ever since the Ukrainian was elected to the UEFA executive committee in February last year, UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin has been under pressure to explain why he was allowed to join.
Letters UEFA received from former lawmakers and NGOs in Ukraine alleging financial wrongdoing by Pavelko were “without any concrete proof” or evidence of court proceedings, Ceferin said at the time.
But the just-published fresh information about Pavelko’s behaviour is bound to add to questions over his suitability to be a member of UEFA’s decision-making inner circle, not least because of a conflict of interest given Pavelko’s senior role in the Ukrainian parliament plus the fact that the journalist from Switzerland’s L’illustré magazine who exposed Pavelko’s alleged wrongdoing claims he received death threats by telephone from Ukraine.
The magazine revealed this month that Pavelko had now resigned from his position on the FIFA disciplinary committee.
“Much of the information in the article … is twisted and does not correspond to the reality,” Pavelko countered in an email to the AP.
FIFA have confirmed that Pavelko left its disciplinary committee in mid-February. At that time, he was apparently under a separate FIFA ethics investigation not linked to financial matters.
That investigation was apparently opened in August 2018 for “publicly criticizing a decision” taken by his colleagues on the disciplinary committee several weeks earlier at the World Cup in Russia.
Pavelko, whose country failed to reach the finals, had publicly backed a controversial video to Ukrainian fans posted by Croatian defender Domagoj Vida, who used to play for Dynamo Kyiv, following his team’s victory over Russia.
In the video, Vida shouted “Glory to Ukraine!” but Pavelko objected to a FIFA ruling that warned Vida for such comments.
In Switzerland, according to the AP, a local state prosecution office is still investigating alleged threats to the magazine journalist.
Contact the writer of this story at andrew.warshaw@insideworldfootball.com