Great initiative: Shakhtar’s initiative should be supported by other participants in European competitions

Not so long ago it became known that the president of FC Shakhtar (Donetsk) Rinat Akhmetov allocates financial assistance to the clubs of professional leagues in Ukraine and children’s football projects to prepare for the new season. Against the backdrop of the victories of the national team at the start of the League of Nations, this news was somewhat lost, but we believe that it is the main one, at least in the club football of Ukraine this year.

Akhmetov’s initiative has no followers yet, which is depressing. Igor Kolomoisky, the Surkis brothers, Alexander Yaroslavsky, Konstantin Zhevago and other respected people of national football should join this process and take entire branches of our club and national team system under their patronage for a while.

After all, war is the story of the destruction of everything human, and football is one of the most humanistic structures that distracts the masses from the destructive and antisocial. Damage to stadiums, the expulsion of clubs from their hometowns, the suspension of tournaments and competitions, the freezing of the work of academies are the most terrible challenges that have arisen before Ukrainian football for the first time in history.

Money is needed to mitigate these catastrophic blows. Big money.

So, on the very surface, the unenviable fate of FC Mariupol, Desna (Chernihiv), FC Kramatorsk and dozens of other football clubs of very different levels of claims and well-being. To support these clubs, to help them with survival and development is the task of the first importance. If the moneybags had created a certain trust fund earlier, you see, Desna and Marik would not have suspended their activities in the UPL.

The second angle is damaged stadiums. We all saw what the occupiers did to the Chernihiv central stadium, but sports facilities in Kharkiv, Mariupol, the Kyiv region and dozens of other places were seriously damaged. A whole group of international specialists should work here, in contact with foreign grants and federations. If Borussia (Dortmund) volunteered to rebuild the arena in the homeland of their ex-player Yarmolenko, why not make similar requests to Milan, Bavaria, Barcelona, ​​Real, Chelsea and other clubs, where – more or less – “inherited” at one time our legionnaires?

The third issue that needs to be addressed is that hundreds, thousands of football players are being pumped out of Ukraine. I don’t feel sorry for those adult “masters of the dermantine ball” who, after February 24, remained at foreign training camps and ran away from the responsibility of a man to clubs in the fifth leagues of Poland or Slovakia – this is actually a ballast drop. But it’s a pity for our future – those kids who now play and train in Man City, Athletic (Bilbao), Atalanta, Benfica and dozens of other strong European clubs. In their homeland, they played no higher than DUFLU by age, they can be played by other teams.

We don’t know if they are recorded? But such a commission is simply vital for the UAF and the national teams committee! Not a single Ukrainian talent should be lost to domestic football! They need to be scouted, for them it is necessary to conduct training camps and involve them in the national teams of their age categories. This also requires money.

Finally, the foot of the pyramid is the First and Second Leagues, the amateur championship of Ukraine. All of them were on pause, but they want to recover and resume. Up to half of the personnel potential of the UPL now is just these guys. All grassroots clubs should receive assistance from FIFA, UEFA and the domestic football rich.

These are the very sketchy, obvious expenses for which millions are now needed. Rinat Akhmetov set the right example, and now I want to see and hear other Ukrainian regulars on the Forbes lists. The future of Ukrainian football now depends on their care and generosity.

Bogdan Gryschuk