Former central defender of Shakhtar Donetsk, Zorya Luhansk, and Croatia's Hajduk, as well as 2009 U-19 European Champion Maksym Bilyi spoke in an interview with Sport RBC.UA about two transfer stories that could have dramatically changed the course of his career. According to the footballer, in the summer of 2015, shortly after moving to Split, he received offers from Denmark's Copenhagen and Dynamo Kyiv, but neither option materialized due to reasons Bilyi describes as a combination of squad limitations and bureaucratic disagreements.
Four months in Split and shock at Copenhagen's offer
In the summer of 2015, Bilyi left Zorya and signed a contract with Croatia's Hajduk. Adaptation was quick: the Ukrainian secured a spot in the starting lineup and became one of the key defensive players. About four months after moving to Split, Denmark's Copenhagen approached the player, expressing interest in signing him. "I was in shock: I played for Hajduk for four months and already got such an offer. I couldn't believe it," Bilyi recalls. However, the deal did not happen: Hajduk sold their captain and central defender Goran Milović to a Chinese club, leaving the coaching staff with only two players in that position. The Croatian club's management explained to Bilyi that they could not let him go amid such an acute shortage of personnel.
Dynamo and the issue of prestige: why Kyiv failed to reach an agreement with Hajduk
About six months after the incident with the Danish club, Dynamo Kyiv intervened. The capital club showed interest in the defender but initially suggested inviting him on trial—a standard procedure practiced by many major teams when evaluating candidates. By that time, Hajduk had changed its management: a new president, a new sporting director, and a new head coach. Sporting Director Mario Branco considered the negotiation format proposed by Dynamo unacceptable. As Bilyi recounts, the official stated: "Listen, such a serious club as Dynamo Kyiv wants to take you on trial? That's unseemly. Let them just send an offer—it's not about the price, let it just be proper and respectable." Ultimately, Hajduk refused to let the player go on trial, and Dynamo did not continue negotiations without this stage. The transfer fell through.
Emotional contract termination
The accumulated frustration from the two failed moves and the internal politics of the Croatian club led Bilyi to ask for his contract with Hajduk to be terminated. The footballer admits that this decision was made emotionally. Thus, both promising options—the Danish and the Kyiv ones—remained in the past, and the defender's career took a different path.
Career context: from Shakhtar to Europe
Maksym Bilyi is a product of the Donetsk football school, having gone through Shakhtar's academy and representing it at the youth level. In 2009, he joined the Ukraine national team that won the Under-19 European Championship. In his professional career, he played for Zorya and Hajduk, where, in his own words, he quickly found his footing and established himself in the starting lineup. The interview with Bilyi, published by Sport RBC.UA, became part of the publication's broader series of materials about footballers whose career trajectories were determined not only by sporting factors but also by administrative ones.
