Dmitry Baiduk shared a pitch with Harry Kane as an under-21 but refusing to support Alexander Lukashenko has meant exile
Dmitry Baiduk scrolls through his phone and stops at a team lineup from June 2015. An under-21s friendly at Oakwell between England and Belarus does not linger in many memories but he can picture it clearly, recalling the moment he came on late in the game to share a pitch with Harry Kane, Danny Ings, Jesse Lingard and Ruben Loftus-Cheek. Nobody can take that away but these days the images prompt a question: “Would Kane be able to imagine what has happened to me since?”
Probably not. Baiduk’s career was taking off when he took a decision that in effect cut it short. Early in 2021 he was asked by his then employers, Dinamo Brest, to sign a letter in support of Belarus’s dictator, Alexander Lukashenko. The government had demanded at least 10 players’ signatures in exchange for continued financial support of the club. Along with his teammate Vitaliy Gaiduchik, Baiduk refused. Upon learning that five teammates had gone ahead and signed the document, the pair asked for their contracts to be terminated.
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