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Shakhtar Donetsk’s chief executive, Serhii Palkin, has accused Fifa of failing to support Ukrainian football in the three years since Russia undertook its full-scale invasion of the country.
Ukraine’s domestic league has managed to play on after an initial six-month pause but resources are scarce and the long-term outlook remains uncertain. Palkin claimed the world governing body had kept its doors “closed to us” and he repeated previous entreaties for the creation of a fund to help maintain a sport that has endured severe physical and financial damage. He also urged Fifa and Uefa to hold firm on their commitment to bar Russian teams from international competitions amid an increasingly precarious geopolitical climate.
“From the beginning of the war Fifa never supported Ukrainian football,” Palkin told the Guardian. “They always had a slogan that we are one family, but it was not one family. They forgot about Ukrainian football completely.
“We need to set up some kind of fund for Ukrainian football and the major donors should be Fifa. They should support us because we have a lot of destroyed infrastructure and a poor economic situation in the industry. It’s difficult to survive in these conditions and it’s strange they completely ignore what’s going on in Ukraine. For me, it’s some kind of shame.”
Palkin claimed there had been a reluctance on Fifa’s part to get around the table and discuss Ukraine’s plight. “Fifa’s door is always closed for us,” he said. “We tried to knock at this door in the last three years but there were no answers at all. I contacted some people at a high level in football and they also tried to communicate with Fifa, but I don’t feel we have success.”
Shakhtar sought £43m of damages from Fifa in 2022 after it ruled that foreign players in Ukraine could suspend their contracts because of the invasion, essentially depriving clubs of potentially hefty transfer fees. They eventually lost their case at the court of arbitration for sport. “Fifa ignored Ukraine and our clubs,” Palkin said.
Asked why he believed Fifa may be reluctant to create a reparations fund or provide further assistance, Palkin said: “In the past three years many people asked the same question, but I don’t know at all. We can make guesses, but I don’t have the answer.”
Last February Fifa’s president, Gianni Infantino, met his Ukrainian Association of Football counterpart, Andriy Shevchenko, in Paris and pledged to “support the continuous growth on and off the pitch” of football in Ukraine. Shevchenko acknowledged the value of existing Fifa programmes, such as the Fifa Forward campaign, in backing the sport’s development in Ukraine. The Fifa Foundation has also helped deliver humanitarian supplies to Ukraine, allocating $1m to the cause in March 2022.
Palkin was speaking days before the anniversary of the full-scale invasion on 24 February 2022, which savagely escalated a decade-long war that has forced Shakhtar to play away from their home city since 2014. Fifa and Uefa acted swiftly three years ago to prevent Russian sides playing in their competitions but, in a fraught international climate and with a volatile US administration appearing openly hostile to Ukraine, Palkin reiterated the need for them to hold the line.
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Infantino has been proud to flaunt his close relationship with Donald Trump, while the Russian Football Union president and Uefa executive committee member, Alexander Dyukov, was quoted in local media this month saying his country could “theoretically” be admitted into the World Cup qualifiers, which start on 21 March. There is scant chance of such an occurrence and Palkin said the authorities’ stance must remain while the war continues.
“At this moment I don’t feel Fifa or Uefa would like to give permission to Russian clubs to participate in European competition,” he said. “Maybe they have separate conversations but officially they keep their position. For Ukraine it’s very important to have a strong position from Fifa and Uefa in respect of Russian teams. It’s not possible, when you invade a country, that at the same time you’re free to do whatever you want.”
Palkin does not see danger in the proximity between Fifa and the US government. “For us the face of Fifa didn’t change since the beginning of the war. I don’t know what kind of relationships they have, but I don’t feel any changes regarding Ukrainian football. I don’t understand how it can be worse and I don’t feel it’s become better.”
Fifa was contacted for comment.
