‘It’s important we saved our sport’: Ukraine’s footballers play on in conflict’s shadow

Three years after Russia’s invasion, UPL teams dream of a seat at Uefa’s top table to avoid an uncertain financial future. Last Friday, Kolos Kovalivka opened the second half of this Ukrainian Premier League season with a home match against a struggling Chornomorets Odesa. The match was kicked off by Dmytro Orel, a soldier who has fought for his country on the frontlines in the war-ravaged east. Orel took in the appreciation of a sparse crowd and saw Kolos score within two minutes. The cheers ended there: a fightback from the visitors brought a 2-1 win and dragged Kolos towards the relegation fight.

The previous day, an infinitely worse piece of news had broken. It was reported that Mykyta Kalin, a former Kolos youth-team player, had been killed during a combat mission in the Kharkiv region. Three years since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, life must continue where possible and football is back on its feet. But its proximity to unimaginable violence, grief and destruction has not really shifted: the effects continue to be felt severely.

“We have two development scenarios,” Andriy Shevchenko, who has just marked a year as the Ukrainian Association of Football president, said this month. “One for when the war continues and one for when it ends. These are very different visions.”.

The present challenge is simply to ensure the sport remains viable: Shevchenko explained that funds for infrastructure projects, ringfenced by Fifa and Uefa, will not be touched until Ukraine is placed to explore schemes of genuine ambition and scope.

The country’s financial position has rallied slightly but remains precarious. Keeping it secure comes above everything. “Ukraine’s economic situation is directly connected to the level of our football,” the Shakhtar Donetsk chief executive, Serhii Palkin, says. “Our domestic income from sponsorship, television rights and tickets is peanuts. We survive through Ukrainian owners investing their own money in clubs. We want a situation where the clubs make money for themselves without the need for huge support, which would mean they are run like businesses. But right now, we are far away from that kind of model. We need many years to return to the level we had before the war.”.

Shakhtar, practised when it comes to dealing with adversity having been forced to play away from their home city for more than a decade, can count on the deep pockets of Rinat Akhmetov to keep them competitive. They have also maintained a semblance of the transfer strategy, the emphasis of which lay heavily on high-ceiling South Americans, that contributed to their rise this century. The young Brazilian forward Kauã Elias, a £14m January signing from Fluminense two weeks ago and their third-most expensive arrival of all time, was a “Next Generation” pick by this newspaper in 2023and stands a high chance of being next on the conveyor belt.

But even Shakhtar have felt the pace of having to play every single European match abroad, often requiring epic overland journeys, especially now two extra league phase fixtures are priced in. They have won six of the past seven domestic titles but must play catch-up against their old rivals Dynamo Kyiv, a much less visible presence when it comes to flying Ukraine’s flag in wartime, this season. Neither giant was close to a place in the Champions League or Europa League knockouts and it is getting harder to keep up.

“Our clubs in European competitions are having the worst results for years, it’s like a nadir for Ukrainian football at this moment,” Palkin says. “But we are living through very, very big difficulties: it’s very important that we saved our sport and that we are still alive.”.

Ukraine’s big guns may wish for better but the majority accept the most significant achievement is playing on at all. “We try to give people the opportunity to distract themselves at least a little from the war and give some positive emotions through sports,” says Denys Miroshnichenko, a defender for Karpaty Lviv. Miroshnichenko was one of several players who gave the Guardian first-hand accounts of football’s attempts to deal with the immediate aftermath of February 2022. He and his teammates had been sent home indefinitely by his then-employer, Oleksandriya, at a time when nobody could envisage a swift return to action.

Sign up to The Recap. The best of our sports journalism from the past seven days and a heads-up on the weekend’s action. after newsletter promotion. Six months later, the league restarted; now fans may attend games in limited numbers and Miroshnichenko sees their presence as a triumph of spirit through tragedy. “I’m not surprised, because I consider our people the most courageous people,” he says. “What they live, day after day, is heroic courage and, in spite of everything, they still manage to live and enjoy life.