The championship statue will be in Kuopio on Saturday at KuPS’ home match. Antti Pohja, who won the championship in the season of 2001, remembers how the last time the statue got a surprise ride to Tampere.
Sakari Lund,
Riku Salminen
19:33•Updated 19:35
The men’s Finnish football championship will be decided on Saturday. Either Kuopio Palloseura or Tampere Ilves will win the championship. Before the final round, KuPS has 53 points and Ilves has 51. KuPS will face HJK at home and Ilves will face SJK at home.
The champions will be given a championship statue at the award ceremony. How do you deal with the statue when the champion team can be either in Kuopio or Tampere?
The statue is ready on the edge of the league-leading KuPS field in Kuopio even before the game, says Veikkausliiga CEO Timo Marjamaa.
– If it happens that Ilves wins the championship, the transport will leave for Tammela as quickly as possible.
In this case, the statue’s journey to Tampere would start immediately after the match.
– Unfortunately, we didn’t get help from the army, we tried a fighter jet, Marjamaa laughed.
– We have to resort to a rubber foot ride. With it we go as fast as possible, but driving safely. In the car are me and the chairman of the Veikkausliiga Kaarlo Kankkunenwho acts as the donor of the statue.
The championship statue could be lifted at the point when it has arrived in Tammela. The Veikkausliiga said earlier that it had also planned a helicopter ride to the statue.
In 2001, the statue was transported from Helsinki to Tampere
Only once before has it happened that the trophy has had to be transported to another location after the last round. In 2001, the trophy was in Helsinki, but Tampere United went past HJK in the last round.
– Then the statue had to be transported as quickly as possible to Tampere. I guess it went straight to the place to spend the evening. Now we have prepared so that there will be an official statue handover ceremony, Marjamaa said.
Sports expert Antti Pohja was in Tampere United’s 2001 champion team. He recalled the events of 23 years ago.
– First of all, that championship probably came as a pretty big surprise to everyone. HJK had a really tough team even at that time, but as I remember, we won the last seven matches with 1–0 results.
In the last round, HJK tied with Haka, and TamU became the champion.
– It wasn’t live result service time yet. Our match had already ended when HJK – Haka was 1–1 on the scoreboard. Tammela’s then stadium exploded with a memorable scream. We went around the field and hugged the fans.
– Then we started thinking about where to go from here. We didn’t even have time. Would the medals have been won on the field, Pohja wondered.
The legendary Tampere restaurant Tillikka was reserved for the team.
– In addition to the team, there were also people from Tampere who wanted to be involved. The place was full when the trophy came to the restaurant. Captain Mikko Kavénin led, it was brought before the people and everyone raised it in the air. We spent the evening with it, visited places, and the statue was always with us, Pohja said.
So far, 11 different clubs have been able to lift the Veikkausliiga championship statue. HJK was the first to have the statue made for the 1990 season as the centerpiece of its championship celebration.