Hungarian club coming to aid of Ukrainian players

Kisvarda, a town of 15,000 inhabitants in northeastern Hungary is quiet, rural – and football crazy. Its professional team, Kisvarda FC, is the surprise success of Hungary's first division. With more than two thirds of the season's games in the books, Kisvarda finds itself in third place in the standings. But the club is also sensitive to world events, with the Ukrainian border just a 20-minute drive away from the town.  

Kisvarda's sports director, owner, and now coach, Attila Revesz, has strong ties to Ukraine. Almost a third of his first-team players are from there and Ukrainians make up almost half of the players on his youth teams. Revesz also helps run a partner football academy in Ukraine.

When the war started, Revesz knew that many players in Ukraine would no longer get paid, so he started a donation drive of both non-perishable goods and especially cash donations to support them. So far, about €10,000 ($11,000) has been raised to help the families of more than 70 footballers. The money is collected and then dispersed by a third party after a committee has reviewed the needs of the families the club is supporting.

However, Revesz is realistic about what that money can — and cannot — do.

Stopgap measure

"This money is just temporary help, it won't solve the real problems in their lives," Revesz told DW. "It'll just make things a little bit better and easier. But for us it's the right way to go. The real help is when we get monetary donations that can be passed on to them. The money that we collect is minor financial aid that they can really use. In certain cases they may use it to make their way here (to Hungary)." 

Revesz was in the western border region of Ukraine called Zakarpattia on February 24, when Russian troops launched their invasion. He quickly came up with the donation-drive idea after talking to Ukrainian football officials. Next, he tasked the Hungarian Professional Players Association to pitch in, which it did. The organization wrote a letter to all professional clubs asking them to do their part, too. Many are, either by helping support the families of Ukrainian players in their squads or by sending off shipments of goods.

As for Kisvarda's Ukrainian players, the war has been devastating. Star forward Anton Kravchenko is so upset that he can't play. His parents are in a region just west of Donetsk. They have told him that they aren't moving and are ready to die there. Revesz respects Kravchenko's situation. 

"Kravchenko's parents live in the region of Dnipropetrovsk," Revesz explained. "At the beginning there was no fighting there, but recently that's changed, so maybe they'll have to re-think things, but we can't use him now anyway. He's also fallen ill. We just haven't been able to include him in the team recently, he's been deeply affected by what's happening."

Worrying about loved ones

Goalkeeper Artem Odyntsov is among Kisvarda's Ukrainian players. Both of his parents and his younger sister are trapped in Donetsk.  

"I don't know how to put it into words," Odyntsov told DW. "It's very difficult – when you talk with them and day and night they just say, ‘We're fine', ‘We're being careful.' Well that's … very difficult."

He also wants to remain strong despite what is happening and focus on his sport.

"The first few days were very difficult," Odyntsov said, "but now I understand that this is my job. I only have this and I have to give my full concentration for the two hours here during a game. After a game or practice I can think about other things."

New arrivals

The Kisvarda team is also continuously bringing in junior players and their families from Ukraine. So far, hundreds of Ukrainian youth players have arrived in the city. Some stay while others move on to teams in Budapest, Sopron and other Hungarian cities.

Kisvarda is by no means a rich club, so funding the aid effort is making a significant impact on its budget. However, for sporting director Revesz, taking this financial hit is a no-brainer.

"We've taken the decision to finance this effort from our own budget, and we'll worry about how to try to compensate for the losses at a later date," he said. "This is our highest priority right now because it's important to give needy people a new opportunity.

"There are already a whole lot of people in this city whose homes have been bombed. They won't be able to return, they will have to start a new life. This will be the start of a new era for them."

Edited by: Chuck Penfold