FIFA failed Ukrainian Football, says Shakhtar Donetsk saying that “their door has been closed” for three years.
FIFA failed Ukrainian Football and has not protected football in the country, if Shakhtar Donetsk’s chief executive, Serhii Palkin is to be believed.
After an initial six-month hiatus, Ukraine’s domestic league has managed to continue, but the long-term outlook is still uncertain as resources are limited. Palkin reiterated earlier calls for the establishment of a fund to support the preservation of a sport that has suffered significant financial and bodily harm, claiming the world governing body had kept its doors “closed to us.” In the face of a more unstable geopolitical environment, he also urged FIFA and Uefa to be steadfast in their resolve to ban Russian teams from international tournaments.
“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.”
In 2022, when FIFA decided that international players in Ukraine might cancel their contracts due to the invasion, therefore depriving clubs of potentially large transfer fees, Shakhtar demanded £43 million in damages from the organisation. In the end, their lawsuit in the Sport Court of Arbitration was unsuccessful. Palkin claimed that FIFA disregarded Ukraine and our clubs.
Gianni Infantino, the president of FIFA, met with Andriy Shevchenko, the president of the Ukrainian Association of Football, in Paris in February and promised to “support the continuous growth on and off the pitch” of football in Ukraine. Shevchenko recognised the importance of current FIFA initiatives, such the Fifa Forward campaign, in supporting the growth of the sport in Ukraine. Additionally, the Fifa Foundation has contributed to the delivery of humanitarian aid to Ukraine, having donated $1 million to the cause in March 2022.