Following the managerial change, with the Finnish coach Toni Korkeakunnas replacing German Roland Vrabec, essentially nothing has changed in terms of performances or results. To be more precise, the club made a complete mess of things by crashing out of the LFF Cup and has almost guaranteed that they will not be playing in Europe next year. There will be no significant European prize money either. Who is to blame for this? The journalist who is independent of the propagandists from the mainstream media and who pulls everyone’s strings with his articles and news? Or perhaps the club’s management, who refuse to look themselves in the mirror?
It feels like the Finn arrived simply to enjoy himself and doesn’t feel any pressure
It feels as though the club’s head coach, the Finn Toni Korkeakunnas, came to Lithuania like a mushroom picker – or, in other words, a guest worker – apparently with no real purpose. I wonder whether he likes Panevėžys beer more than Finnish beer?
At the moment, the club sits second from bottom in the A Lyga, while their goal difference is the worst in the entire league (-15). What exactly are they planning to do in Europe against Kazakhstan’s Tobol in a month’s time?
All of his press conferences are equally predictable, and essentially he always says the same thing: “The team didn’t perform, we lacked defensive discipline, we gave up too quickly and didn’t fight, but the boys are great because we had a good conversation with them in the dressing room after the match.” Those are the kinds of thoughts that can constantly be heard from him.
During the two-week break for the Baltic Cup, the Finn returned to Finland for a week and gave the entire squad time off. Is that really how you behave when your backside is on fire and the most important matches of the season are approaching? The team looks completely unprepared, and under the new head coach they have shown no real football. The defense remains unbalanced despite more than two months having passed.
We’ve seen and heard this somewhere before…
“We’re working hard and the results will come soon. The important thing is to stay positive.”
That is exactly how Austrian coach Martin Schiller spoke during his first season with the basketball club Kaunas Žalgiris. Later, midway through the following season – in the autumn of 2021 – he was dismissed. More recently, the very same Panevėžys executives heard almost identical words from German coach Roland Vrabec, who remained in charge for a year and a half. The press conferences of this extremely arrogant specialist, who always held an exceptionally high opinion of himself, looked virtually identical. He constantly emphasised the players’ willingness to fight, the lack of luck or questionable refereeing decisions. One good match would be followed by a dreadful run of two, three or even four games, interrupted only by an occasional draw that somewhat calmed the situation.
During his spell in Panevėžys, Vrabec averaged 1.5 points per game and was dismissed far too late. Regardless of everything, the Panevėžys management eventually ran out of patience listening to the German’s fairy tales this year, and three months ago he was shown the door, receiving compensation amounting to several months’ salary.
Without question, he should have been dismissed immediately after winning the 2025 LFF Cup during the winter. But when the people running a club have little understanding of when and under what circumstances a coach should be removed – or when and how the right replacement should be appointed – such management eventually exposes its own incompetence to everyone. That is exactly what happened in this case.
The club’s management should focus on the VIP lounge, doing business there and signing sponsorship agreements over vodka and bacon, rather than involving themselves in football decisions. As happened in the past with the company Kauno Grūdai and its SUN YAN instant noodle brand, when the objective was to develop it in the Lithuanian market. Leave the football side of things to well-paid professionals. But then, of course, there is less money left – and that’s not ideal either.
The rise of Kauno Grūdai’s SUN YAN brand coincided with the golden years of the Aukštaitija club.
You cannot sit on two or three chairs at the same time – you cannot simultaneously run a large business and maintain close ties with the city’s mayor. Or perhaps you can? You take money out of one pocket and put it into another. You support the city’s football club with private funding, and it comes back to your account in the form of tax relief on land taxes – or perhaps you’re exempted from them altogether. Who is going to look into it? After all, everyone knows everyone. As Henrikas Daktaras would put it: “Everyone is in on it, and everyone drinks together.”
If sponsors – especially those who own large industrial plots of land – get involved in sport, the benefit for them is obvious, because they recover the money through tax incentives.
The vast majority of businessmen are not involved in charity. They simply want to become even wealthier. By sponsoring whatever is currently popular, they can more easily work around various requirements, ranging from environmental regulations to land lease taxes.
As long as Lithuania does not have genuine private investors in football, there can be no serious discussion about the future of the sport.
More often than not, basketball and football clubs become places where political allies of mayors – people who failed to get elected or are otherwise unemployed – find work. These are members of the mayor’s inner circle who pursue their own interests, while football or basketball is merely a game to them, with no real responsibility attached.
This is practically the reality across Lithuania’s municipalities: employ your friends and pay yourselves salaries. A season didn’t work out? The next one will. The important thing is to pay yourselves on time and, if possible, avoid qualifying for European competitions so you don’t expose your true level on the European stage. Yet at the same time, they are always eager to organise qualification tournaments in Lithuania because that automatically brings additional funding from the municipality.
That is exactly why youth championships and qualification tournaments of every possible age group are organised. From hotels, stadium and arena rentals to catering, transportation services and purchasing equipment – it’s an endless business, as LKL president Remigijus Milašius would say.
Gino Lettieri remains without a job
Italian coach Gino Lettieri has been unemployed since May this year. In 2023, he led Panevėžys to the A Lyga title. Continuing the discussion about Panevėžys, the club desperately needs someone capable of combining the roles of both head coach and sporting director, because they simply cannot afford to hire two separate people on high salaries.
That was exactly what Italian coach Gino Lettieri once represented, bringing with him all of his football connections. In my opinion, he would now be an excellent fit for Kauno Žalgiris, and, according to my information, he was recently offered the opportunity to join the club.
It would be a perfect partnership. After all, the 2023 Lithuanian champions have already proven themselves capable of winning titles, while Kauno Žalgiris possesses significant financial resources. What more could anyone want?
Time will tell whether Gino returns to Lithuania in the near future, but the interest shown by the Kaunas club was absolutely real. However, the coach wants a long-term contract – at least a 2+1-year deal – and an expensive one. What ultimately happens remains to be seen.
It is also worth asking the Panevėžys management another question: what should they now do with the Finnish coach? Terminate his contract, or still give him an opportunity to make his European debut?
That is their decision. After all, they are the club’s leadership, they receive substantial salaries and bonuses for exactly these kinds of decisions. And there is no need to blame one journalist for everything ending up, quite frankly, as a complete disaster. Since Gino’s departure, you yourselves have been moving steadily in this direction.
The obvious question remains: why did the club need coaches like Vrabec or the Finn in the first place? It feels as though they bought an impressive CV without ever considering what they were actually going to do with it.
Driving an expensive luxury car along the potholed roads of the Panevėžys district simply means throwing money away on repairs. And a luxury car, like an expensive mistress, will keep draining your wallet until every last euro is gone. What will you do then? Go bankrupt? Or ask the mayor for more money? The Finnish coach’s contract is reportedly worth more than €4,500 per month before bonuses.
Another question is why the Panevėžys management have become hostages to poor football agents selling expensive “cats in a bag” and no longer seem capable of making independent decisions. You might say we’ve seen this before. Yes, you are right.
It happened during the decline of the legendary basketball club Lietuvos Rytas after sporting director Jonas Vainauskas left his position. His father, Gedvydas Vainauskas, lacked the sporting knowledge, understanding of the finer details that determine success, and trusted advisers needed to keep the club on course. As a result, the legendary Vilnius club gradually became a toy in the hands of agents and was ultimately driven towards collapse between 2013 and 2017. In the summer of 2017, Gedvydas Vainauskas resigned as club president and sold his shares.
You may say it is foolish to compare two completely different sports. Perhaps. But the principle remains exactly the same everywhere. If you want to win, you have to get off your backside and work hard. Otherwise, you’ll become a loser – and nobody likes losers or wants to sponsor them.
The director of Panevėžys is currently attending the FIFA Club World Cup, where he will remain until June 28.
Half of the foreign players should be shown the door – they should have been moved on a long time ago. What exactly are they still waiting for? And what are his deputies doing in the meantime?
As for the local football media – although, in reality, such a thing does not exist in Lithuania, only people with vested interests who serve the establishment and the federation – they only write something, whether positive or negative, when information is fed to them from above and they have first been properly compensated for it. Then they know how to work, and they perform like obedient dogs. As one of the directors of a club from the Aukštaitija region once told me:”You write badly.” My reply to him would be simple: “Show some appreciation, and let’s be friends.”
Speaking about improving Panevėžys’ football, it is simply impossible under the current circumstances because, first and foremost, the club’s management lacks the courage to put any real pressure on the Finnish coach.
Even during the two-week Baltic Cup break, they gave him an entire week off instead of demanding that he remain working and prepare the team for the decisive and most important matches of the season. On what basis do you give a week off to a coach who has produced virtually no results and who, during his short spell in Lithuania, has averaged no more points than his predecessor, the German coach?
Furthermore, in private conversations with sporting directors from clubs in the Finnish top division, there was genuine surprise. Their reaction was essentially: “Why did you hire this coach?”
After all, just a couple of years ago, while in charge of HJK Helsinki, he lost to Panevėžys, with Ernestas Veliulis scoring twice and sending the Finnish side off to the sidelines to rake hay. For the sake of fairness, it should be said that HJK, under Korkeakunnas, reached the UEFA Europa Conference League group stage later that same year. Nevertheless, despite that achievement, he was dismissed in May 2025.
His next chapter took him to Norway and Haugesund, where his spell also eventually came to an end. His CV looks impressive, but it is not suited to Lithuanian football. The calibre of ammunition in his magazine is simply too small. The coach – or the club? Judge for yourselves.
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