The Belarusian specialist confirmed that he and his players were victims of an attack hooligans.
The head coach of the Polish second division club Zaglebie Sosnowiec Alexander Khatskevich commented on the information that he was allegedly beaten by fans who burst into for team training.
In a comment to the website Sport-express.ua, the 50-year-old Belarusian specialist shared the details of the scandalous incident.
According to Khatskevich, a group of hooligans in balaclavas broke into the training base and aggressively put pressure on him and his players. However, things did not come to a fight. Khatskevich with other coaches and most of the players left the field on time, and some Polish football players entered into dialogue with fans who expressed their complaints.
In addition, Khatskevich said that he was outraged by the behavior of the club president, who did not create proper safety conditions during training, and also did not get in touch after the incident.
“There was a very unpleasant incident at the team's training session, let's call this situation exactly like that. The players and members of the coaching staff went out to practice and a group of unknown young men attacked us. Everyone was wearing balaclavas. There were about 30-40 men. I didn’t count exactly how many there were. These young men jumped out onto the field and behaved very aggressively. They tried to put pressure on us physically.
They probably wanted to beat me up. However, everything worked out. Most of the coaches, myself included, and almost all the team players promptly left the field. Local football players, Poles, stayed and had some kind of dialogue with these guys. They talked about something, I can’t say what exactly. Not because I don’t want to tell you, no. I just don’t understand Polish that well. There were some complaints.
Am I okay? Yes. No bruises, no scratches. Everything is fine. After this group of unknowns left our base, we returned to the field and conducted training. Moreover, they finished it in a good mood.
Were these representatives of the Zaglebie ultras? They didn't introduce themselves who they were. There were no identifying marks on them either. No club paraphernalia or anything like that.
What angered me most in this situation is that we still cannot contact the president of the club. I have one very serious question for him: how could it happen that the team was attacked at its base? Why didn’t the club ensure the safety of the players and coaches in any way at all? Thank God, everything worked out, but…” said Khatskevich.
Khatskevich took charge of Zaglebie in mid-January 2024. Since then, the team has scored only 2 points in 6 matches.
Zaglebie now occupies the last place in the standings of the second strongest division of Poland. The gap from the place outside the relegation zone is 12 points.
We would like to remind you that from 2017 to 2019, Khatskevich headed Dynamo Kiev. the leadership of the “white-blues” won two Ukrainian Super Cups.
