Head of Ukraine Football Association to be detained before fraud trial

The head of Ukraine’s Football Association, who is a serving member of Uefa’s executive committee, is to be detained for 60 days without bail before a trial on fraud and money laundering charges relating to the construction of an artificial grass factory.

Andriy Pavelko will spend the next two months in a pre-trial detention centre in Lviv after a request from prosecutors, who accuse him of “embezzling” 26.5m Ukrainian Hryvnia (£600,000).

Pavelko was arrested last November for allegedly misusing funds but released after the Ukraine Football Association (UAF) paid bail of £226,000. The Shevchenkivskyi district court in Lviv overruled that decision on Friday.

The decision was condemned by the UAF who described it as “politically motivated” and announced that it would be appealing.

It said in a statement: “We at the Ukrainian Football Association consider this decision to have no legal basis and is politically motivated, and the UAF lawyers have already filed an appeal.

“The transfer of the case from Kyiv to Lviv and the speed of decision-making raise questions not only among lawyers, but also among ordinary people who are not familiar with legal intricacies.

“Also, UAF lawyers will appeal to international institutions in order to prove the groundlessness of the arrest of Andriy Pavelek, who is also a member of the Uefa executive committee. In addition, documents are being prepared for submission to the European court of human rights.”

The allegations against Pavelko follow a four-year investigation into claims of overpayments made by the UAF to a company in the United Arab Emirates that had been working with the national football body to build Ukraine’s first artificial grass factory.

Prosecutors claim that “during the