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The Lithuanian champion Ekranas from Panevėžys refused to participate in the annual "Unity Cup" tournament, which will take place in Moscow from January 14-22.
The head coach of Ekranas, Virginijus Liubšys, said before the end of the Lithuanian "A League" championship that he did not want the team to go to Moscow. "Unity Cup" tournament, according to the Ekranas coach, only confuses players and throws them off rhythm", he said back then.
Today, on Thursday, V. Liubšys once again confirmed that Ekranas will definitely not go to Russia. When asked if they had already informed the tournament organizers about this, the coach answered: "We haven't informed the organizers yet. However, yesterday during the closing of the football season, I informed the leaders of the Lithuanian Football Federation about our club's decision."
Instead of Ekranas, the country's vice-champion FBK will participate in the "Unity Cup", which, as the strongest team in Lithuania for many years, already has a lot of experience in the tournament.
"If the people of Panevėžys do not want to participate, we are ready to replace them. We believe it is worth testing our strength in this tournament. Ekranas sees it differently. This is the coach's decision. Every coach has their own concept of readiness for the season, so they act as they see fit," said the president of the Kaunas club Gintaras Ugianskis to the official A League website.
In the 14th edition of the tournament, 16 teams will compete, divided into four groups. After drawing lots, it was revealed that the Lithuanian team will play in Group D along with Yerevan's "Pyunik" (Armenia), Soligorsk's "Shakhtar" (Belarus), and the Russian national youth team (under 19 years old). The latter team will play in the tournament without competition.
