Men's Volleyball Woori Card Recruits Artem as a Foreign Player to Replace Matei
In fact, the first Russian player since the Ukraine War… “Individual recruitment is separate”
Men's professional volleyball team Woori Card has recruited a new foreign player to replace Matei Kok (registered name: Matei), who left due to injury. 바카라사이트
Woori Card announced on the 19th that it had recruited Artem Sushko (registered name Artem, Russia), who is 203cm tall and weighs 91kg.
Artem has mainly played in Middle Eastern leagues, including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Qatar, since 2019.
In the 2018-2019 season, he had experience playing for KEPCO under the registered name ‘Atom’.
However, due to an abdominal injury at the time, he only scored 70 points in 5 games and 19 sets.
Artem Sushko said, “I am happy to be able to play volleyball in Korea again,” and added, “I will do my best to help the team win.”
Shin Young-cheol, coach of Woori Card, said, “Artem has a high level of understanding of tactics.
He can play both an opposite spiker and an outside hitter, so we plan to use a variety of team tactics.”
Regarding Matei, who had to leave due to an ankle ligament injury, he said, “He contributed to the team's performance with excellent skills, but it's unfortunate that he couldn't be with us until the end.
I hope for a speedy recovery and good luck.”
Matei played a pivotal role in the team, playing 26 games until the 8th of this month, ranking 4th in scoring (669 points), 4th in serving (0.39 per set), and 4th in open attack (46.37% success rate).
Woori Card performed well with 2 wins and 1 loss after Mattei left out, but lost the lead by 2 points to Korean Air, which was on a winning streak.
Artem is virtually the first Russian player to step onto the V-League court since February 2022, when the war in Ukraine broke out.
In the women's division, IBK Industrial Bank of Korea nominated Anastasia Gurbanova, a dual citizen of Russia and Azerbaijan, in the foreign draft in April 2022, but she was replaced before the opening because she did not fit the team color.
An official from the Korea Volleyball Federation (KOVO) said, “At the International Volleyball Federation (FIVB) level, there is no guideline that says ‘players from certain countries cannot be transferred',” and added, “The recruitment of individual players must be viewed separately from excluding their country.” explained.
Russia was expelled from the FIVB Volleyball Nations League (VNL) after invading Ukraine.
