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Respect Inclusion Project attracts Ambassadors to promote equal access
The official UEFA EURO 2012 Respect Inclusion – Football with NoLimits project has announced its Ambassadors in Poland and Ukraine; namely Dariusz Dziekanowski, Poland ex-player and U21 coach from 2002 to 2006, Oleksandr Shovkovskiy, goalkeeper of FC Dynamo Kyiv and Ukraine national team, Oleksiy Mykhailychenko, ex-USSR midfielder, Ukraine coach from 2008 to 2009, and Volodymyr Nechyporuk, Director of Ukrainian Fashion Week.
All the Ambassadors were happy to join the project, as they personally share our vision of creating equal access and they each firmly believe that disabled people have the right to enjoy football, sports and all forms of entertainment in the same way as everyone else. Being well-known and highly respected for their individual achievements in their countries, the Ambassadors will promote this message to the wider society with the hope that UEFA EURO 2012 will become a positively unforgettable experience for disabled fans.
About the Respect Inclusion Ambassadors
Dariusz Dziekanowski
Born on 30 September, 1962 (Warsaw, Poland) , Dariusz is a former Polish international player, and Founder and President of the Polish Association of Former Players formed in 2007.
He started his career at Polonia Warsaw (1973–79) and was selected for the 1986 FIFA World Cup Poland squad. He won the Polish Cup in 1989 whilst with Legia Warsaw before moving to Celtic in 1989. Dziekanowski became a fans-favourite after scoring four amazing goals in a nail-biting European Cup Winners' Cup tie against Partizan Belgrade.
Since his retirement in 1997, Dariusz has worked as football commentator at Polish TV and from July 2006 to May 2008, he was the assistant coach of the Polish national football team.
Oleksiy Mykhailychenko
Born on March 30, 1963 (Kyiv, Ukraine), Oleksiy is a former Soviet Union and Ukrainian football player and coach. Oleksiy is an honored Master of Sports of USSR and one of the few football players to have played for three different national teams - USSR, CIS, and Ukraine.
The attacking midfielder played at FC Dynamo Kyiv and was a member of USSR Olympic winning team at the Olympic Football Championship in Seoul in 1988. In the same year, Oleksiy played in the UEFA EURO 1988 Final and took 4thplace in the UEFA European footballer of the year ‘Golden Ball’ classification. From 1990, he played for Italian side, Sampdoria where he became the first Soviet player to win the Italian championship. Oleksiy ended his football career at Rangers FC in Scotland.
Since retiring, Oleksiy has been the coach at FC Dynamo Kyiv (2002-2004), the junior team of Ukraine (2004) and coach for the Ukraine National Football Team (2008). As such, Oleksiy also became the first person to be both a player and a coach for the national team of Ukraine.
Volodymyr Nechyporuk
Born on August 21, 1964 (Vorkutacity, Komi Republic, Russia) Volodymyr has been the General Producer of Ukrainian Fashion Week since 1997.
He studied at the faculty of journalism at Kyiv State University (which is named in honor of Taras Shevchenko) from 1981-1986, and has been President of the advertising and information agency ‘YANKO’ since 1989. Volodymyr was editor of the Ukrainian EVA magazine from 1994-2004 and L’Officel Ukraine from 2000-2004.
Volodymyr Nechiporuk is a gifted journalist, manager and organiser, and a respected and well known public figure within the region. In February 2011, he was appointed as an official UEFA EURO 2012 Friend.
In 2011, Ukrainian Fashion Week started a cooperation with the National Assembly of Disabled People of Ukraine and thanks to Volodymyr’s efforts, ХХІХ Ukrainian Fashion Week supported the social campaign ‘Tolerant Society- Live Equally’ for the first time. This campaign promotes a positive attitude towards disabled people and improving access.
Oleksandr Shovkovskiy
Born on January 2, 1975 (Kyiv, Ukraine), Oleksandr is a current Ukrainian football player.
He has played for FC Dynamo Kyiv since 1994 and is goalkeeper of the Ukraine national football team. He is the third highest capped player of the Ukrainian national team and was the first goalkeeper to keep a clean-sheet in a World Cup penalty shoot-out, during the 2006 FIFA World Cup in Germany. He is an honoured Master of Sports of Ukraine and considered to be the best goalkeeper in the history of independent Ukraine.
He has played more than 352 matches for Dynamo Kyiv,winning 11 championships and with only the legendary Oleg Blokhin having played more matches for the Kyiv club. Shovkovskiy has been voted best goalkeeper of Ukraine on 5 occasions, in 1999, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006.
Piotr Pawłowski
Piotr is the Founder and Chairman of Integracja in Poland.
Piotr Pawłowski has always been keen on sports and played basketball and athletics before breaking his back in a diving accident at the age of 16. This left him paralysed from the neck down. Piotr, a graduate of the Institute of Family Studies and a post-graduate in Ethics and Philosophy from Warsaw University also has a PhD from the International School of Social Sciences at the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of Polish Academy of Sciences.
Piotr’s life mission is to ensure the integration and full functioning of disabled people within society. To achieve this, he unites people around the idea of integration of disabled people as a social normality based on coexistence, cooperation and partnership in all the aspects of civil life. To effectively implement the mission, he founded a magazine named "Integration" in 1994, and a year later, the Friends of Integration Association (Stowarzyszenie Przyjaciół Integracji).
Everything Piotr does is innovative. He was the first in Poland to create a platform for understanding between the world of disabled and non-disabled people, as well as a building an information platform for disabled people, their families and friends and raising awareness for the issues related to disabled people.
According to Piotr disability ceases to be a problem only when the two worlds: non-disabled and disabled people come to together through coexistence, cooperation and co-living throughout the world.
Piotr has been honoured, with the Award of the Government Plenipotentiary for Disabled People (1999), Prize of the Polish Committee for Social Welfare, a Bączkowski’s prize for his work in social service, especially for the stubbornness and determination in solving social problems (2000), Knight's Cross of the Order of the Rebirth of Polish (in 2001), Catholic TOTUS Award (2003), National Education Committee Medal granted by the Ministry of National Education, Wacław Schubert’s medal granted by the National Academy of Sciences. He is also an Honorary Citizen of the City of Gdynia.
Editors’ Note
The Centre for Access to Football in Europe (CAFE), funded by UEFA, has been established as a European wide charity (registered in the UK) with a purpose to achieve equal access to football. Using the special influence of football, CAFE aims to improve the lives of disabled people by promoting inclusivity and equality; enabling more disabled people to enjoy a football match as a problem-free experience; and because football embraces diversity in all its forms, raising disability awareness and the importance of good access more widely throughout the UEFA region. For more about CAFE and how you can get involved, please visit our website at www.cafefootball.eu or contact us @ info@cafefootball.eu or call +44 (0) 1244 893 586.
UEFA EURO 2012 Respect Inclusion – Football with No Limits
UEFA is working with CAFE (Centre for Access to Football in Europe) to manage three separate RESPECT Inclusion initiatives. Under the “Football with No Limits” initiative, access information will be provided to disabled fans and visitors by the means of a tailor-made guide. CAFE’s local implementing partners for this initiative are TUS Foundation in Poland, and National Assembly of Disabled People in Ukraine. Through the “Showcase games” project run by Special Olympics in Poland and the National Sports Committee for Disabled People in Ukraine, disabled people will be given the opportunity to demonstrate their sports skills by competing in football matches before each quarter-final game. Funds for future inclusion initiatives will be raised through the UEFA EURO 2012 Tournament charity project, encouraging football supporters and other benefactors to donate money for upcoming projects, with UEFA paving the way by committing to donate €3,000 for each goal scored during the tournament.