Russian coach suspended for 2 years for calling ‘monkey’

how it all started

The fifth match between Lokomotiv and Uralochka in the Women’s Volleyball Super League final ended with a score of 3-2 (25:21, 25:20, 26:28, 20:25, 15:7). During a break, Loko head coach Andrey Voronkov addressed one of his accusations, “Why are you holding this monkey?” He dropped his expression: perhaps referring to Cuban Ailama Montalvo, the only dark-skinned girl in Uralochka. These moments were also reflected on TV cameras.

Uralochka general manager Valentina Ogienko said that after the match, Voronkov should have publicly apologized to the athlete.

Voronkov’s reaction

The Kaliningrad club apologized to the athlete, but not to the coach himself. He remained silent until the last moment. As for Montalvo, he refused to discuss the event and stated that he wanted to return to Russia – he left the composition of Uralochka. The club stressed that his departure was not connected with the scandalous situation.

Voronkov broke his silence almost two weeks later, when the disqualification was already given. He stressed that he did not want to comment so as not to add fuel to the fire.

“In a very difficult game moment for us, at a time when the nerves were at the highest level and the emotions were literally running wild, I regret that what I said in a personal conversation with a player from our team was taken as an insult and a show of disrespect.

I had no intention of offending any of the rival volleyball players. And even more sad is the fact that in this case it was Ailama Sese Montalvo, who was considered offended, ”said Voronkov regnum.

“Two years! My God!”

The event was placed on the agenda of the All-Russian Volleyball Federation (VVF) board of directors. VFV Secretary General Alexander Yaremenko announced the decision regarding Voronkov.

“VFV’s Executive Committee has decided to disqualify AG. Voronkov for a period of two years. Disqualification includes all competitions under the auspices of the All-Russian Volleyball Federation. WFV.

Former volleyball player of the Russian national team Dmitry Fomin, reacting to the decision of the VFV disciplinary commission, emphasizing that he initially did not support Voronkov, but was shocked by this decision.

“It is very difficult to be disqualified for two years. For what? Even considering that he didn’t apologize even though he expressed his feelings for the woman. But such a punishment – two years! my god! I can’t see any reason for this.

Today we live outside of our country – to the west – and we know what’s going on. There is no racist, but do we have it? Nonsense! Do we have anything else to discuss today? Too harsh punishment for Voronkov does not correspond to action. Everything must be answered appropriately.

You can’t cut off one person’s head and walk past another – there were other incidents that looked just as ugly. I don’t know what guides people in making such a decision.

At first I was not on Voronkov’s side. A person can apologize – everything happens: feelings, he did not think. Well, I would just say: “I’m stupid, I said such nonsense.” But now that everything has reached this level, I think it was in vain,” he said.

“Complaint is very unlikely”

Sports lawyer Ilya Chicherov noted that Voronkov had little chance of appealing the sentence. According to him, this is theoretically possible, but you should not count on it.

“The Arbitration at VFV can be appealed, the decision is then appealed to the NCCA (National Center for Sports Arbitration – our recently formed “our” response to CAS).

I’ve seen very creative explanations for the need to reduce or remove sanctions, which, of course, are debatable in theory. In practice, this is unlikely,” said Chicherov.

Voronkov has ten days to file an appeal, said Alexander Yaremenko, VFV General Secretary and head of the federation’s disciplinary commission.