On Friday, June 20, the FFU Executive Committee has approved the norms indispensable to functioning of Ukrainian Football Premier League. Besides, other important issues were also discussed, in particular, appointing the coach of U-21 team, new head of FFU Referees Committee, foreign quota, inviting referees from abroad.  

Official start of UFPL
First of all, the Executive Committee has once again acknowledged its position regarding Premier League and enabled it the green light. The Committee members provided permission to form the «Premier League» Union of professional football clubs of Ukraine, then they affiliated it to FFU structure on temporary basis (permanent membership will be adopted on the next Congress session), agreed its Statute and adopted the calendar for the coming season. Afterwards, Football Federation of Ukraine and the «Premier League» Union of professional football clubs of Ukraine put pen-to-paper for 2008/2009.

Important decisions
The Executive Committee touched upon the compromise decision to keep the current foreign quota (7) for one year more with its further decline. FFU president Grigoriy Surkis admitted that according to the Federation strategy backed on the Congress and FIFA Congress, foreign quota in 2011/2012 should make maximum of five foreigners in club. Clubs and UPL members expressed desire to resort to services of foreign referees twice per half of the season. However, the Executive Committee didn’t support this idea explaining that such way may pose a threat to deterioration of qualification of Ukrainian home-grown referees. In the long run, they managed to come up with a compromise: a club may invite a group of foreign referees only once per half of the season.  

Shevchenko to replace Derdo
One of the most resonant issues has to do with head of FFU Referees Committee Victor Derdo who was dismissed of his duties. So, the members elected a new person to take over a post − Vadym Shevchenko. Before the appointing he worked in the FFU department of staging sports events. He also used to work as FIFA referee.

New mentor of U-21 team
As it’s known, after Oleksiy Mykhailychenko was promoted to lead Ukraine national team, Volodymyr Muntyan performed the functions of U-21 team manager alongside ruling the Committee of national teams. So, from now on U-21 team received a new coach Pavlo Yakovenko. He’s not a freshman in this field as Oleksiy Mykhailychenko in his due time replaced him on that post.

World Cup 2010 to start in Lviv and Kharkiv
National team’s issues didn’t pass unheeded at the session. The Executive Committee members defined the cities to host matches of the ‘blue-yellows’ in 2008. So, Lviv will host the friendly with Poland (August 20) and World Cup 2010 qualifier with Belarus (September 6), and Kharkiv will host the qualifying encounter against Croatia (October 11).

Lobanovskiy Memorial
The Executive Committee adopted the Regulations of the VI Valeriy Lobanovskiy Memorial which will take place in August 19-21 featuring U-21 teams of Ukraine, Poland, Bulgaria and Northern Ireland. Dnipropetrovsk will allegedly host the competition. But considering that the date of opening new Dnipro stadium is unclear, the place to stage the contest may be transferred to Kyiv.