Ukrainian coach Andriy Demchenko has unexpectedly ended his collaboration with the reigning Georgian champions — Tbilisi club Iberia 1999. The contract was terminated on the eve of the European competition start, leaving the team without a head coach at the most critical moment of the season, despite the fact that under Demchenko's guidance the squad achieved a historic milestone for Georgian football.

Historic breakthrough and sudden split

Demchenko took charge of the Tbilisi side in the summer of 2026, signing a deal on a "six months plus one year" basis. It was under him that Iberia 1999 advanced to the main stage of the Conference League, becoming the first Georgian club in 22 years to reach the main stage of a European competition. The paradox of the situation is that the club parted ways with the coach who delivered it a historic result — and did so just weeks before the start of the European campaign.

The numbers: what remains in the stats

In total, at the helm of Iberia 1999 the Ukrainian coach managed 21 matches: nine wins, three draws and nine defeats. Meanwhile, the team sits second in the domestic league and trails the leader — Tbilisi's Dinamo — by just one point, with a match in hand. In other words, the team was formally in the title race, yet both sides still decided to terminate the collaboration early.

Who takes over: Levan Korgalidze

For the vacant position, the Tbilisi club appointed local specialist Levan Korgalidze, who previously managed the capital's team. Thus, Iberia 1999 has bet on a coach familiar to the Georgian football landscape, who will have to stabilize the situation ahead of the European start and in the championship.

Demchenko's career: the path from Zaporizhzhia to Batumi

Andriy Demchenko is 50 years old. He began his coaching career at Zaporizhzhia's Metallurg, where between 2012 and 2015 he managed the youth teams. In the following years he served as head coach at Uzbekistan's Obod, was an assistant and acting head coach at Veres and Lviv, and in the 2019/20 season managed Metalist 1925. A particularly successful stage was his work in Georgia: Demchenko twice won bronze medals in the local championship at the helm of mountainous Dili, and in August 2023 he took over Batumi's Dinamo, with whom he won the Georgian championship title at the end of that same season. In addition, he managed Kazakhstan's Zhenis and Azerbaijan's Araz-Nakhchivan.

Context: Ukrainian coaches abroad

The story with Demchenko is part of a broader trend in which Ukrainian specialists are in high demand in the football leagues of the CIS and the Caucasus. In the same context, it was previously reported that former Vorskla coach Yuriy Maksymov took over a relegation-zone side in the Azerbaijan championship. Thus, the split with Iberia 1999 opens a window for new offers for the 50-year-old coach, although the very fact of his early departure after a historic European breakthrough remains one of the most discussed episodes in Georgian football of the 2026/27 season.