Galina Danilkina is a general director of “Dinamo” Moscow. It is one of the strongest futsal club, which lost two matches in a row in the final of Futsal Cup. Last year “Barcelona” of Spain beat “Dinamo” and this year it lost with “Kayrat” of Kazakhstan. For the third place “Iberia Star” played against “Barcelona”, Danilkina was sitting in the VIP-box in Tbilisi Sport Palace and emotionally was supporting “Iberia Stars”. She used to clap her hands and shout. In a word, she was fully involved in the match. The most thing which interested us is that she is a spouse of a legendary player, Konstantin Eriomenko, the best futsal player of XX century. Fans supposedly remember Eriomenko very well from “Dina” of Moscow, their history is also dramatic, they were heading this work together, but three years ago, Eriomenko died due to a heart attack at the age of 39. Now, his spouse goes on his activities and as she says, she devotes victories to Kostya. We talked with her at the end of the match against “Kayrat”.

- You again lost in the final…

- We cannot change anything. First time we won Futsal Cup in 2007 together with Konstantin Eriomenko and if we gained victory now, we would dedicate this victory to him. But we lost and it seems that we did something wrong while preparing. If you work correctly, you will be the first in any case.

- What about organizing of the tournament?

- Tbilisi hosts such kind of tournament first time and in spite of this they really did well. I really liked it.

- You are a spouse of a legendary player, Konstantine Eriomenko and still stay in futsal. What is it, love of this kind of sport or respect to the memory of your husband?

- I will tell you one history. I met Konstantine Eriomenko in 1998. Before that I even had not known what futsal was. I thought it was just something like “Merry Starts”. But after meeting Kostya, time by time I interested in it.  These years were the peak of his career, of course I was pleased. When he finished playing, there was a question about his future. What would he have to do? Did he have to go to business with such talent and experience? We decided to create the club together. Then he met Boris Grizlov who was the Ministry of Interior Affairs of Russia at this time, there was not mini-football brand “Dinamo” and that’s why Grizlov offered him to create such club. In 2002 Kostya became the president of the club and I was appointed as a general director, because there were not any relevant candidates (smiling).

- How long did you live with Eriomenko?

- Unfortunately,for 8 years. We do not have common child and “Dinamo” became our child. Kostya died not only for me, it was a tragedy for the club too. His close friend Andrey Gubernsky became the president of the club after his death and I kept my position and keep taking care of the club. With our victories we want to respect what Kostya introduced us. By the way, I was surprised when you asked me about Eriomenko. I thought that no one knew about Georgia.

- Woman- football functioneer- it sounds exotically. Does not it?

- At the beginning it was very difficult. Women appeared in football now, 10 years ago it was strictly defined territory of men. But I also do not have a light character. I am ambitious and I decided to prove that I was not only Eriomenko’s staff, but could work. Then a lot of people were laughing at me and now, after winning so many cups and medals, men look at me in other way and sometimes I am asked advice about football management.

- Is it your first visit in Tbilisi?

- Yes it is and I want to say that my dream came true. In my childhood I saw standard photos of Tbilisi in magazines many times and The Mtkvari embankment and the houses located on the rocks reminded me a fairy tales. And at last I saw all these with my own eyes. I am very happy. I wanted to arrive here for a long time, but I could not, we played against “Iberia” before too, but it was in Poland. Then we made friends and after that we have negotiations, send present to each other and so on. And now I saw this beauty.

- What about “Iberia”?

- It seemed stronger club now than before. It played at the final stage first time and it lacked experience. It would be good if we played against each other in final, but we played in semi-final.

Solomon Gulisashvili