Honga’s manager opens up about a difficult decision before the game trip to Kazakhstan – this is why the team decided to fly through Russian airspace

Honka will play the Conference League qualifying match in Kazakhstan next week. The team will fly to the away game through Russian airspace, because according to manager Hexi Arteva, there were only bad options available.

FC Honka will play the first match of the Conference League qualifiers next Thursday against Kazakhstan’s FC Tobol. Espoo’s away game trip has raised a lot of questions, as the team travels to the match by flying through Russian airspace.

Read more: The Finnish team flies to its European game through Russia

The European Union closed its airspace to Russian aircraft at the end of February 2022 in response to Russia’s attack on Ukraine, to which Russia responded by closing its own airspace to European planes. Honga’s decision came out when the team’s defender Matias Rale told about it in what can be found in Supla In the Veikkausliiga podcast.

Hong’s Manager Hexi Artevan according to the background of the decision that caused a stir is a matter of a holistic assessment, because FC Tobol’s hometown Kostanai is a difficult place to reach.

In terms of travel arrangements, Honga had the worst possible luck in the draw of match pairs. In the most favorable situation, the people of Espoo would have traveled to Riga, Latvia, as a guest of FC RFS. There was also an opponent from Slovakia, Armenia and Moldova in the draw basket. It is clear that the trip to Moldova would also have raised security concerns due to the Russian war of aggression.

When making decisions related to the trip, the club consults security professionals and the embassies of Finland and Kazakhstan.

– The other options would have been to go on a drastic tour and it would have been something that we could not have afforded in terms of cost. Or with really many stopovers to Astana and from there 800 kilometers of mountain roads through unstable areas by bus for an estimated 14 hours.

According to Arteva, the trip to Kostanai will cost Honga “hundreds of thousands” of euros. Alternative routes would have cost at least one hundred thousand euros more.

The match pairs of the first qualifying round of the conference league were drawn two weeks ago. Since then, the Espoo club has organized its away game trip. According to Arteva, things were finalized on Thursday at the Kazakh embassy. He did not reveal the team’s detailed travel plans or flight routes to Urheilu.

Arteva mirrors the safety situation of the trip to the evaluations and decisions made by the club.

– You can probably judge from our decision that it is sufficient.

According to him, the away game trip has not sparked a discussion within the team “on such a scale that it is worth mentioning”. The club had realized in its evaluations that the trip might attract attention. However, Arteva emphasized that there were no good alternatives available.

– If we had good solutions in use, of course we would have chosen that. The key point is that these things are not done based on feelings. There has been a large group planning and monitoring this, and this has been considered from many angles. I emphasize that sometimes there are situations where we get to choose the least bad option.

Despite the upheaval, Arteva sees that Honga has a good chance of reaching the next round.

– The preparation is as good as can only be done with our resources.