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The original was posted on /r/soccer by /u/Bartoni17 on 2024-03-31 09:12:05.

Maciej Rybus is a former Legia Warszawa player who later went to play in Russia. In years 2012-16 he played for Kadyrov’s Terek Grozny and after that (and good EURO 2016) he went to Olympique Lyon. He couldn’t make it there, so he came back to Russia. In years 2017-2022 he played for Lokomotiv Moscow. After Russian invasion of Ukraine he decided to stay in Russia (as opposed to Sebastian Szymański or Grzegorz Krychowiak for example). This was his end of career in Polish national team. Now he’s a Rubin Kazan player.

Yesterday he made his first big interview since 2022 for a Polish TVP Sport. Here’s a translation - I also highlighted his most controversial statements (in eyes of Polish public).

Here’s original:

Sebastian Staszewski, journalist (J): Do you still have a Polish passport?

Maciej Rybus (MR): That’s one way to start an interview.

J: To warm you up

MR: Yes, I do. And why shouldn’t I have one?

J: Reading the comments appearing on the internet after you decided to stay in Russia after the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, one appeared particularly often: ‘Rybus, give up your Polish passport’.

MR: I was getting all sorts of messages. They wrote that I had sold out, that they should draft me into the Russian army. That I should get the fuck out and not come back to Poland. That I was a rag, a traitor, a Russian onuca (footwrap associated in Poland with Russian army and sympathisers of this country).

J: Did that hurt?

MR: It did hurt. But by deciding to stay in Russia, I knew what might await me.

J: Let us start from the beginning: On 24 February 2022, the troops of the Russian Federation invaded Ukraine and started a war that continues to this day. Despite the war, however, you decided to stay in Russia and play in the league there. Why?

MR: It’s all more complicated than people think.

J: This is no explanation. Life is the art of choices.

MR: At the beginning I didn’t want to react rashly. What happened surprised everyone, including me, no one had any idea how the situation would develop, how long this war would last. I was wrestling with my thoughts, analysing. Should I stay? Or maybe leave? I didn’t know what to do.

J: Many athletes didn’t have this dilemma. They simply packed their suitcases and left Russia after a few months. Like Sebastian Szymanski or Rafal Augustyniak. You stayed.

MR: They had nothing in common with the country. They had contracts and that was all. I, on the other hand, have a wife there who is Russian, two sons, real estates, a life that has developed over ten years. In fact, it was in Russia that I became a real man, started a family, made money and secured our future. It was also where I achieved my greatest footballing successes. Leaving it all overnight was not so easy.

J: And in retrospect, after two years of war, do you think it was a good choice?

MR: For my family - for sure.

J: And for you?

MR: As a professional athlete, I faced harsh criticism many times, but what happened after the war broke out was like an avalanche that crushed me. At a certain point I couldn’t cope, the scale of the heckling was unbelievable. It was thousands of posts, hundreds of private messages. Some of them were going over the top, writing, for example, that I should die. People around me advised me to give up social media, but I didn’t want to be hounded. In the end I didn’t do it, but for a few months I tried not to put anything on Twitter or Instagram, because any activity resulted in an outpouring of shit.

J: Your decision stirred up huge emotions in Poland, sometimes - as you yourself noted - extreme. However, you could have expected this.

MR: Interestingly, I only saw these emotions on the Internet. No one ever approached me on the streets. Neither in Russia, nor in Poland, nor anywhere else. Recently in Antalya, we ran into a group of Poles. The only thing I heard from them was a request to take a picture together. It was the same just after the outbreak of war, when I wanted to fly to the country. There were no more connections to Moscow, so someone suggested flying to Kaliningrad and then crossing the border on foot. I was travelling with my older son, people helped us a lot. The situation only changed online. There I immediately became a ‘Russian’.

J: You mention the family, its welfare. Isn’t that a mere excuse?

MR: It isn’t.

J: Or did you, however, act cynically and choose the money you could have earned in Russian clubs? The former deputy head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Marcin Przydacz, once called them “bloody”.

MR: And what exactly did he say?

J: I’ll quote his entry from June 2022: “There is nothing more embarrassing than hiding behind +family welfare+ when it is simply about big money. And it’s blood money”.

MR: This is the Minister’s opinion. He was entitled to it. But actually, you can answer one question for me: why should I have left Russia?

J: Everyone will find a different reason.

MR: But I ask you: why do you think I should have left then?

J: Because it is immoral to make Russian money in the middle of a war, when thousands of people, including children, are dying in Ukraine, when the world discovers massacres like the one in Bucha.

MR: But am I doing anyone any harm?

J: You don’t have to run around the forest with a rifle and shoot to do harm.

MR: After all, I am doing the same thing I did before the war.

J: Circumstances have changed, however. Before there was no war, now there is.

MR: I understand, anyone in my position would have had the right to make their decision. I made mine. Not under the pressure of people or posts on the Internet, but according to my conscience. I like life in Russia, in Moscow. I quickly acclimatised there, got to know the language, the people, who are my friends. The family feels comfortable there. But, unfortunately, war broke out… Some time ago, when I was flying on holiday, the seat next to me was taken by Anatoly Tymoshchuk, a legend of the Ukrainian national team. After the war he stayed in St Petersburg. He is in a similar situation to me, he has a Russian wife, children who were born there. And he had similar dilemmas. Someone will say that we made a lot of money, so we could move to Spain or Cyprus at any time. We probably could, but it would be starting life all over again. Nothing pleasant, especially for the children.

J: Do they understand what is happening around Dad?

MR: Probably not, the sons are too young. But Lana regularly received offensive posts. In Polish, Russian, English. She went through hell. But she’s an Ossetian from Vladikavkaz, women there are very strong.

J: Doesn’t war raise the temperature in your home? You’re a Pole, she is a Russian.

MR: No, we don’t talk about it at all. Even at the beginning it sometimes happened, because you know that for everyone what is happening in Ukraine was a shock, but later we decided to avoid the subject. It may surprise someone, but we don’t have Russian television in our flat. Neither do we have a Polish one. We have a TV, but we only watch Netflix, YouTube on it.

J: And you don’t know what’s going on in the world?

MR: I look at Twitter, but I try to avoid war topics.

J: It’s a convenient explanation. You cover your eyes, plug your ears, and people are dying a few hundred kilometres away. And you say, “I don’t know, I’m busy.”

MR: It’s not like that. I’m experiencing it all very much. But I don’t want to go crazy. I have a family to provide for, I have a job to do. Let me repeat: I am not hurting anyone by my actions.

J: In that case, can you say outright that you condemn the war in Ukraine?

MR: I believe that every war is evil, because every war brings death and many other terrible things. Like all reasonable people, I would prefer the world to be at peace. But, unfortunately, this is not always the case.

J: In the summer of 2022, you had a good opportunity to change your surroundings. After five years of playing for Lokomotiv Moscow, your contract with that club came to an end. You had a card in your hand, you were the master of your fate, you could have chosen to play in another country. Why didn’t you take that chance?

MR: Because I only got one offer: from Spartak Moscow. I also had the option to extend my contract with Loko by one year, but Spartak offered a two-year contract. I had no other options. (This is a lie or he lied before. In an interview for Russian Bookmaker-Ratings a year ago he said he had a lot of offers, as weszlo.com noticed).

J: It was only June, the beginning of the transfer window. If you had waited a few weeks, something would probably have come up.

MR: Maybe yes, maybe no. Spartak offered a contract for two seasons, for very good money. I like to have everything under control, especially in such uncertain times. So I figured that at my age - and I was about to turn 33 - a better offer wouldn’t come along.

J: So money was the deciding factor.

MR: Rather, it was the stability they could guarantee us.

J: It never crossed your mind to leave Russia?

MR: Once. When Prigozhin’s raid on Moscow was underway. Lana and the kids were in the capital, and I was in Kazan. We were all filled with fear.

J: You could move to Poland…

MR: …

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