Ukrainian goalkeeper Georgiy Ermakov, who was defending the goal for Maccabi Haifa in the summer, married Oleksandra Mikolyuk, a participant in the Ukrainian ‘Bachelor-11’. They officially became husband and wife on September 18, 2026. The wedding was announced by the footballer’s current club, FC Kharkiv, congratulating Ermakov and Oleksandra on starting a family.
Author: Victoria Katsman
For Israel, the story here is a bit broader than the usual sports social news. Ermakov spent a season as the goalkeeper for one of the country’s largest clubs, holds Israeli citizenship, and his family lives in Israel. His wife also studied here — at Reichman University in Herzliya. So the phrase ‘former Maccabi goalkeeper married a Bachelor participant’ is correct but significantly cuts the plot.
And there has already been confusion with the biographies of the newlyweds after the first publications.
The wedding was on September 18. But the ‘nine-year difference’ doesn’t add up.
FC Kharkiv announced the marriage on the evening of September 18: ‘goalkeeper of Kharkiv Georgiy Ermakov and his beloved Oleksandra officially became husband and wife’. The club did not disclose any additional details of the ceremony.
Ukrainian entertainment publications quickly picked up the news. Along with it, another figure spread: Oleksandra is allegedly nine years older than Georgiy. Several publications repeated it on September 19.
Only the dates contradict this.
Georgiy Ermakov was born on March 28, 2002 — the date is in the official database of the Ukrainian Premier League and on the FC Kharkiv footballer’s page. Oleksandra Mikolyuk was born on May 5, 1998. These same data agree with the 2021 publications when she was 22 at the time of participating in ‘The Bachelor’.
So Oleksandra is about four years older than her husband, not nine.
For NANews, there is not much choice here: mass reprinting of the number does not make it correct. Therefore, we will not use ‘nine years difference’ further.
Georgiy proposed to Oleksandra in January 2026. By that time, the couple had been dating for more than a year. About eight months later, they registered their marriage.
Who is Oleksandra Mikolyuk — and what does Israel have to do with it
The Ukrainian television audience knows Oleksandra from the 11th season of the show ‘The Bachelor’, which aired in 2021. The main character of the season was businessman Mykhailo Zalivako, and Mikolyuk left the project in the fifth episode.
For the Israeli reader, a small explanation: the Ukrainian ‘Bachelor’ is the local version of the international television format The Bachelor. The project’s participants meet one man, and he gradually chooses with whom to continue the relationship. Of course, that television romance has nothing to do with Oleksandra’s marriage to Ermakov today — the show ended five years ago.
But after television, Mikolyuk had a completely different biography.
She studied in Prague and then came to Israel and in 2024 received a master’s degree at Reichman University in Diplomacy & Conflict Studies.
Israelis usually do not need an explanation of Reichman University, but other readers may remember this institution under its old name — IDC Herzliya, Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya. In 2021, it received university status and the name Reichman University.
It turns out quite amusing: when Ermakov later came to play for Maccabi Haifa, Israel was no longer an unknown country for his future wife. She studied here herself, and not for a couple of weeks.
Now Mikolyuk is also engaged in public activities. In Ukraine, the NGO ‘Soft Power’ is registered, with Oleksandra Mikolyuk listed as the director. The organization was registered in October 2025.
So the usual newspaper headline ‘married a Bachelor star’ works as a headline. For a biography — it’s already weak.
Ermakov’s connection with Israel began before Maccabi
With Georgiy, it’s a similar story. His Israeli part of life does not start with a contract in Haifa.
As early as July 6, 2025, NANews reported that Ermakov studied at a Jewish school in Kyiv, maintained relations with the family of Kyiv rabbi Yonatan Markovets, and his parents moved to Israel after the start of the full-scale war. Georgiy himself visited here to see his family before joining Maccabi and already understood a little Hebrew.
Moreover, that material for NANews was also prepared by Victoria Katsman: ‘In Kyiv, I studied at a Jewish school’: Ermakov’s first interview after joining Maccabi Haifa.
Ermakov said that his parents live in Holon, and he himself managed to get acquainted with Israeli life before a full-fledged move. Then there were training sessions in Haifa, the Maccabi locker room, Hebrew around him every day, and matches at Sammy Ofer.
So now there are indeed two separate Israeli lines in the family. He has family and football. She has university and studies.
NANews — News of Israel | Nikk.Agency
From ‘Oleksandriya’ to the goal of ‘Maccabi’
Ermakov’s football career took off sharply before coming to Haifa.
Maccabi acquired the rights to the Ukrainian goalkeeper in the summer of 2024 for about €100,000, but left him on loan for a season in ‘Oleksandriya’. And this season changed everything.
In the 2024/25 Ukrainian Championship, Ermakov played all 30 matches, 15 of which ended without conceding a goal, and ‘Oleksandriya’ became second. At the end of the season, the clubs of the Ukrainian Premier League recognized Georgiy as the best goalkeeper of the championship.
In the summer of 2025, he already came to Haifa as a ready first number, not as a young goalkeeper ‘for the future’.
NANews followed this story quite closely throughout the next year. By spring, it became clear that Ukrainian clubs wanted to bring Ermakov back, but now it was about completely different money.
In May, we wrote about an offer from the Kharkiv club for about €3.5 million: €3.5 million for Maccabi Haifa goalkeeper: Ukrainian club prepares a major offer. In June, negotiations were still ongoing, and the goalkeeper himself did not promise to stay in Israel: Ukrainian goalkeeper between Israel and Kharkiv: Maccabi Haifa prepares a raise, but Ermakov does not promise to stay.
In other words, the wedding takes place literally a couple of months after another big chapter in Ermakov’s life ended.
Maccabi bought him for about €100,000. Two years later, the price became different
By July, it became clear that the parties were indeed moving towards a deal.
NANews then thoroughly analyzed the economics of the transfer: ‘Maccabi’ turns €100,000 into €3.2 million: Georgiy Ermakov prepares to return to Ukraine. At that time, Israeli sources named amounts in the range of €3–3.2 million.
Finally, Ermakov became a player of FC Kharkiv on July 29, 2026. The club’s official website records this transfer, and profile databases estimate the transfer at about €2.8 million.
Even if we take this lower final estimate, the difference is impressive: Maccabi acquired the rights to the footballer for about €100,000, got the main goalkeeper for a season, and then sold him for about 28 times more.
Not every Israeli club can afford such deals. And they don’t happen every year.
Why ‘Kharkiv’ if it was recently ‘Metalist 1925’
Here’s another explanation specifically for the Israeli reader.
In our old publications about negotiations with Maccabi, the name ‘Metalist 1925’ appears. Now everywhere it says FC Kharkiv. It may seem that one club wanted to buy Ermakov, but he ended up in a completely different one.
No.
In June 2026, ‘Metalist 1925’ underwent rebranding and continued to perform under the name football club ‘Kharkiv’. Therefore, the January, May, and June negotiations of ‘Metalist 1925’ with Haifa and the July transfer of Ermakov to FC Kharkiv are parts of the same story.
The second detail, which may be unclear without the Ukrainian football context: UPL, which often appears next to Ermakov’s name, is the Ukrainian Premier League, the top division of the Ukrainian championship.
Now he plays there again every week.
Wedding is a wedding, but the next day — 90 minutes and another ‘zero’
After the club’s announcement of the wedding, Ermakov did not have any prolonged pause.
Already on September 19, that is, the day after the official congratulations to the newlyweds, Georgiy played in the goal of ‘Kharkiv’ against ‘Bukovyna’. He played all 90 minutes, the Kharkiv team won 2:0, and Ermakov did not concede again.
As of September 20, he has six matches in the current Ukrainian championship. The games with ‘Veres’ — 1:0, ‘Zorya’ — 3:0, ‘Obolon’ — 5:0, and ‘Bukovyna’ — 2:0 ended ‘dry’. There were also two matches with goals conceded: 1:3 against ‘Polissya’ and 0:1 against ‘Shakhtar’.
Plus, on September 16, Ermakov played in the Ukrainian Cup against ‘Prykarpattya’: ‘Kharkiv’ won 2:0.
In total, by the morning of September 20 — seven official matches for the new club and five games without conceding goals.
This is already more relevant than the initially spread statistics of ‘six matches, four clean sheets’. It was correct until the cup game and the meeting with ‘Bukovyna’, but football sometimes becomes outdated faster than an article can be published.
They left Haifa, but Israel has not disappeared from this story
In short, it turns out to be not the most ordinary Ukrainian-Israeli couple.
Ermakov grew up in Ukrainian football, studied at a Jewish school in Kyiv, visited his family in Israel, became the main goalkeeper of Maccabi Haifa, received his first call-up to the adult Ukrainian national team from here, and then returned to the Ukrainian championship as a footballer of a completely different value and status.
Oleksandra Mikolyuk is known to the public thanks to ‘The Bachelor’, although after the show her route went through Prague, the Israeli Reichman University, a diploma in diplomacy and conflicts, and her own public work.
Now they are a family.
With Haifa, Georgiy has put a period — at least a football one. But we hope to see both of them in Israel again. For this couple, returning here will not be a tourist trip: each has a place to return to in their own story.