Andriy Shevchenko elected President of the Ukrainian Association of Football

Андрій Шевченко, президент Української асоціації футболу.

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On January 25, Kyiv hosted the XXVI Congress of the Ukrainian Association of Football (UAF). There, the sixth President of the UAF was elected; legendary Ukrainian football player and coach, winner of the Ballon d'Or and first UNITED24 ambassador, Andriy Shevchenko, became the new president.

In his work, the new President of the association will focus on nine steps: transparency and digitalization of the association's activities, development of national teams and their brands, collaboration with clubs, arbitration reform and specialist training, international cooperation, and the use of football for trauma recovery of Ukrainians.

"Ukrainian football should be mainstream and accessible, the national teams should be the pride of every Ukrainian, and the clubs should be strong and effective. We plan to implement the best international practices for the rapid development of Ukrainian football, and use football to overcome the traumas of war. A lot of work lies ahead," said Andriy Shevchenko.

The new UAF President noted that he plans to create a database of people involved in football and digitize all the association's activities. To do this, Shevchenko plans to cooperate with the Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine.

One of the challenges is the outflow of talented children from Ukraine. In his speech, Shevchenko emphasized that Croatia faced a similar situation in the 1990s, and the country successfully coped with it. He also mentioned that Zvonimir Boban, who participated in the creation of the football development program in Croatia, has already confirmed readiness to cooperate and exchange experience.

Jozef Kliment, UEFA's Advisor to the Director of National Associations, attended the UAF Congress online. In total, 94 delegates representing all permanent and associate members of the UAF took part in the Congress.

Having received 93 votes out of 94 (Shevchenko, who is a delegate to the Congress, did not participate in the voting), Andriy Shevchenko takes office as President of the association for a five-year term.

Pavlo Boichuk was elected first Vice President of the UAF, and Serhiy Rebrov and Oleksandr Shevchenko were elected Vice Presidents of the association. It was also decided to reduce the UAF Executive Committee to 12 members.