Children’s sport, which is actively developing as part of a private network of educational institutions, is an example of how the Ukrainian capital works, even in times of war. ” The Academy of Sports A+ in Kyiv is currently developing more than 10 sports sections in parallel, uniting more than 65 children’s teams and instilling a love of sport and a healthy lifestyle in more than 800 of its pupils. Oleksiy Martynenko, the head of the private sports school “Academy of Sports A+” of the educational network A, told us how he managed to resume work during the war, when high sports results come and where to look for sponsors committed to children’s sports as part of the special project of the Komersant ukrainskyi
magazine “Children’s Sports: a business that is impossible without…”.
Mr Martynenko, the format of the Academy of Sports A+ provides for the active parallel development of several and completely different sports. Gymnastics, football, karate, basketball and even chess. In your case, is multidirectionality a response to a client’s request or is it more about creating an initiative offer that children and their parents find difficult to refuse?
Indeed, we are a multi-vector organisation, with more than ten sports clubs in various sports. But it wasn’t always like this. At one time, we started with 2-3 sports sections. And over time, as we opened new schools and added new clients, we realised that there was a demand from parents for martial arts, complex coordination sports or even fan sports sections. So we listened to the requests and opened new sections. All of this was accompanied by a search for coaches who were fans of their craft. We always weighed whether our infrastructure was suitable for a particular sport. This is the first thing.
Secondly, I want to say that the philosophy of our network is science, creativity and sport. That is, sport is one of the main areas of focus for us. That is why our vision is that the more sports we can offer our children, the better they will be able to prove themselves and realise their potential.
Children are all different. Accordingly, we strive to have a range of offers to develop as many of their personal capabilities as possible, based on their preferences, aspirations and physical characteristics, among other things. In my opinion, in institutions like ours, the main thing is to harmoniously combine the client’s request with the opportunities we can offer.
How many children do you cover in your sections today and how do you choose coaches who manage to really make the younger generation fall in love with sports?
As of the summer of 2024, more than 800 children are involved in sports in our A sports network at all locations in Kyiv. This is a very impressive figure. Although once the number of 300 children seemed unbelievable to us, then 400..
We work in about ten areas. We have about 65-70 sports teams. These are the teams that train every day, compete in competitions and win awards.
How do we choose coaches? Frankly speaking, unfortunately, the situation with staff is difficult now. Both in Kyiv and in Ukraine as a whole. It is not easy to find motivated people: people who share modern training methods, European approaches to training, who do not shout at children and do not use foul language. And such problems still exist in some institutions. Unfortunately..
But we are constantly looking. And we always find it. We also have the practice of training our own coaches. We have such an example with cheerleading. It is almost impossible to find a ready-made specialist in this sport. Accordingly, our current coaches have developed a training programme and have already successfully passed on their experience to colleagues.
When choosing a coach, we always take into account their personal qualities. After all, only those people who are in love with sport can make you fall in love with it. And, you know, it is very difficult to limit such specialists in time. At our school, for example, you can often see how classes continue despite the fact that the training time has already ended.
Academy A has been developing for many years. It is clear that business results, including in the children’s sports sector, have been achieved gradually. What was the impact of the war and did you manage to return to the pre-war figures? Thanks to what?
Indeed, we developed at a fairly rapid pace until 2020. Our sports teams took part in national tournaments. And we had big plans for 2022. We were already reaching the level of international competitions. Our teams took part in international tournaments. This is our basketball team Sharks, our gymnasts. The teams travelled to Luxembourg, Poland, Hungary, and Turkey. on 24 February 2022, I remember it clearly, I had to buy a ticket for a Kyiv-Barcelona flight and accompany our football team, which was going to an international football festival.
The war made its own adjustments. In the first weeks after the war started, we had no idea what was happening. Then our CEO and inspirer of the A network, Tatiana Shapovalova, gathered her thoughts, and we started to come out of the state of shock. We quickly launched an online school and online training. Online chess classes started, followed by cheerleading and gymnastics. Although it sounds strange, the coaches were really online, and children joined the training from different parts of Ukraine, from basements, shelters, and from abroad. They needed it, and we needed it.
Of course, our performance in terms of business fell. To be honest, we had to start from scratch. As soon as it became possible to resume the educational process in Kyiv, we started doing so. It was, as I remember now, on 11 April. I returned to Kyiv, we started communicating with all the coaches, finding out who was where, contacting parents and children. We resumed the first training sessions at a minimum cost of 100 UAH. And kids came to us from all over Kyiv.
From April to September, we were gradually re-establishing teams, sections, and systematic training. Of course, we lost a lot of coaches who left, children who also left Kyiv. Approximately, we are talking about 70%. These are all new clients who did not train with us before the war.
But the main thing is that today we have much more children than we had both before the Covid and before the war.
How did this happen? Through faith and dedication to our work. By understanding that we cannot stop and must develop children’s sports. We should not be stopped by the war. We must only become stronger and more resilient. And when I see children training in shelters during sirens, I realise how strong and invincible we really are.
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Brand power. How does it work in your school? What are your unbreakable rules for its preservation and development? After all, in sports with children, there are still such crucial categories as individual approach, trust, safety, and support. And where there is a larger team, it is much harder to control all the processes.
We have a few unbreakable rules for preservation and development. Firstly, it is about the mission, vision and corporate values. Every business should have them.
If we are talking about the A Sports School, our main mission is to change the attitude towards national education and sports, create an innovative sports space for our athletes and bring the quality of sports education to the international level.
Our vision: A school of the Academy A is a leader among sports institutions for children, among youth sports schools and private institutions, as well as a recognised member of the international sports community. We are moving towards this, and we are making progress.
And, of course, corporate values that unite all our employees, coaches, and teachers. These are honesty, integrity, responsibility, efficiency, professionalism, reputation, corporate style and, of course, patriotism. All of this unites us and inspires us to move forward.
Behind these words is a real attitude towards the members of our large team. We really appreciate coaches who have eyes that light up. And our basketball team is a great example of this. When the team was just formed, it had no victories. And the coach then frankly explained the need for time to teach them not to win, but to play, to teach them to be a team, to teach them to help each other. We were patient and waited. Eventually, this coach’s work paid off. Our children became champions of Ukraine.
Reliable sponsors and the search for long-term partners. These are the issues that are urgent for every children’s team. In your experience, which ways (channels) of attracting them work better and which ones should be abandoned?
I’ll be honest. The best channel for finding sponsors is parental chats and parents. It is parents who are interested in the life of the team. And when they see that the team is really ready for high sports results, they help in finding sponsors, and some of them become patrons themselves. We are very grateful to them for this.
We have a good example of our basketball team, which was raised for the European Youth Basketball League by all parents and the whole of Kyiv. We literally raised money and donations for the trip because we wanted to raise the flag of Ukraine in the international sports arena. We succeeded. The team took third place. Everyone was “shocked” and very happy.
We also want to attract businesses to sponsor children’s teams. There are businesses in Ukraine that invest in the development of children’s sports. In our example, we are talking about representatives of the IT sector. I sincerely believe that more and more entrepreneurs in Ukraine will understand the importance of supporting children and will also enjoy being involved in more and more victories of our athletes on the world stage.
There are no bad ways to find partners for children’s sections, I believe. We need to talk about it, ask businesses, offer, encourage. And then you will definitely find like-minded people.