Back in 1913, the football world of the Russian Empire was rocked by a scandal involving our beloved city.

It’s probably hard to find a book on the history of football these days that doesn’t mention this rather amusing stunt by the Kharkiv team.

For example, in Yuri Fedorovich Korshak’s book *Old, Old Football *, published in 1975, we find the following:

Chaos continued to reign in the Russian championship. In the south, where teams from several cities competed separately, the “Kharkiv League” was tasked with organizing the matches. The city’s football officials carried out this mission in a rather unique way. According to the draw, the Kharkiv team was scheduled to face the Kyiv team. The Kharkiv officials politely inquired with their opponents about the most convenient date for the match and scheduled it… for a completely different day. The Kyiv team was unable to send a squad and was declared the loser. Later, the Kharkiv team narrowly defeated Yuzivka and advanced to the final. The Southern Championship final was supposed to be held in Kharkiv. The tournament organizers wanted to play the same trick on the Odesa team as they had on the Kyiv team. But, as they say, they picked the wrong team to mess with. The Odesa team filed a complaint with the All-Russian Football Union. Since the parties could not agree on the dates for the match, the Union set the date itself and, on top of that, moved the game from Kharkiv to Odesa.

However, the contemporary researcher Yuri Pavlovich Lukosyak, in the second volume of his book *Russian Football : Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow. 1860–2011,” published in 2011, describes this amusing incident in greater detail, publishing the minutes of a meeting of the All-Russian Football Union’s executive committee:

From the magazine *To Sports!*, Moscow. No. 35. October 13, 1913.

VFS BOARD MEETING

Thanks to the presence in St. Petersburg of R.F. Fulda and K.G. Bertram, an impromptu meeting of the Union’s Executive Board was held, chaired by A.D. MacPherson. Most of the meeting was devoted to reviewing the misunderstandings that arose during the Southern Championship. Kharkiv had been entrusted with organizing the event, but it appears they interpreted their role rather one-sidedly and acted in a rather unusual manner.

It is impossible to judge this with certainty, since the Kharkiv League did not inform the union of its decisions and did not send any minutes; thus, the union’s board learned about what was happening in the South only from the protests of aggrieved clubs and leagues. First and foremost, Kyiv complained that it had been deprived of the right to compete in the championship. Initially, Kharkiv asked when Kyiv could play, and then scheduled a match on a date when Kyiv was unable to play. During a meeting of the Union’s Board in Moscow, a representative from Kharkiv stated that the Kharkiv League would rectify the situation and allow Kyiv to play against Odesa or Kharkiv, but the matter remained at the stage of good intentions. The Executive Board decided to point out to Kharkiv that such a decision was incorrect. Kharkiv then “scheduled” the final match between Kharkiv and Odesa to be played in Kharkiv. The Odesa team was apparently not consulted, as they had asked the union to schedule the game in Odesa; since the Board’s response was delayed due to necessary negotiations among its members and between the interested parties, Odesa gave Kharkiv its “reluctant” consent to travel on the specified date, but then Kharkiv rescheduled the match for another day, one that was completely inconvenient for Odesa. Having determined from the telegrams submitted that the blame for the match not having taken place yet lay primarily with Kharkiv, the Board scheduled the match for the 13th in Odesa…

That’s the kind of people we had among our fellow countrymen—people who wouldn’t shy away from any trick to achieve victory.

And as we can see, scandals in football weren’t just a recent phenomenon—they were happening a hundred years ago, too…