Ukrainian league kicks off amid Russian invasion

KYIV • Shakhtar Donetsk and Metalist 1925 yesterday played out a drab goal-less draw, but the fact that the match even took place at all was a win in itself as the Ukrainian Premier League restarted, six months after an indefinite suspension following Russia's invasion.

To give an understanding of how perilous things are in Ukraine, Shakhtar's players could only finish their final training session on Monday after air raid sirens had stopped.

Thousands of people from both sides have been killed, millions have been displaced, whole cities have been destroyed and there are no signs the conflict will end any time soon.

The Shakhtar-Metalist game was staged without fans, as will be the remainder of the 2022-23 season due to the risk of bombs and missiles. Two top-flight clubs - Desna Chernihiv and FC Mariupol - have been replaced in the 16-team league after their stadiums were destroyed in fighting.

Mariupol's existence as a club is also under threat after the city fell to the Russians in May following a brutal three-month siege that Ukraine says killed over 20,000 residents.

Shakhtar knows the feeling all too well. Since 2014, the team have not been able to return to their home city of Donetsk, after it was overrun by Russian-backed separatists and declared the capital of the Donetsk People's Republic.

Despite the upheaval caused by the move to Kyiv, Shakhtar have maintained their position, jostling with Dynamo Kyiv as Ukraine's two most successful football clubs, and continued to regularly appear in the Champions League.

Russia's invasion, however, has been the biggest threat to the club in the past eight years.

Fifa's recent announcement to extend a regulation allowing foreign players under contract with Ukrainian clubs to temporarily go elsewhere without penalty meant that Lyon and Fulham were able to poach Manor Solomon and Tete for free, instead of the €24 million (S$33.4 million) they were supposed to receive for the pair.

The loss of that financial lifeline led Shakhtar to last month sue the world football governing body for €50 million.

But there is little likelihood that many of the foreign stars who once plied their trade in Ukraine - the league used to be a stepping stone for budding talent with the likes of Fred and Fernandinho cutting their teeth at Shakhtar before earning their big moves to the English Premier League - will ever return.

For the first time in two decades, yesterday's Shakhtar line-up, once filled with imported players, was almost exclusively Ukrainian as the players took to the pitch against Metalist.

For safety reasons, Shakhtar, who will be part of tomorrow's group-stage draw for the Champions League, will not play their home games in Ukraine, but rather in Warsaw.

With war raging, club officials have expressed concerns about resuming the Ukrainian Premier League, instead proposing that the season be held abroad.

But Volodymyr Zelensky's government overruled the idea, deciding that live games, even in empty stadiums, would serve as an important prong of the propaganda war.

"Ukrainian sports and the will to win on all fronts cannot be stopped!" Sports minister Vadym Gutzeit wrote on Facebook.

The dire circumstances mean Ukrainian military officials will be present at every game and if an air raid siren lasts more than an hour, they will confer with the referee to decide whether to wait or to postpone the match completely.

"This will be a unique competition: It will happen during a war, during military aggression, during bombardments," Andriy Pavelko, head of the Ukrainian Association of Football, said.

REUTERS, NYTIMES