It is not clear what constitutes normal life at Shakhtar Donetsk anymore.
Some things have remained the same, like two weeks ago when they retained their Ukrainian Premier League crown, collecting their sixth title in the last seven seasons. The circumstances in which they did it, however, were extreme, even for them.
Now, CEO Sergei Palkin is a man on a mission, even though just surviving the last year was arduous enough. Despite everything he and his team are going through, Palkin believes clubs across Europe are exploiting the conditions in which stricken Shakhtar are forced to operate and taking what is not theirs – his players, for free.
And he won’t have it.
“We paid good money for these players,” Palkin tells i. “Big prices for Manor Solomon [on loan at Fulham last season], for Tete [Leicester loanee] and yet these clubs want to receive them for free.
“I have already sent messages to clubs like Tottenham who want to sign our players, telling them we will go to court.
“These clubs need to know this. It does not have to be this way.”
Tottenham Hotsur are one of the sides interested in Manor Solomon, the Israel international who left Ukraine for Fulham on loan last season, benefitting from Annex 7, which has decimated the Shakhtar squad since Russian artillery first targeted Kyiv in February 2022.
Palkin is so unhappy with Fifa and their introduction of the ruling that allowed foreign players to suspend their contracts as a result of the war, even though conflict in the Donetsk region started in 2014, that he views world football’s governing body as much as an enemy as Ukraine’s oppressive forefathers.
“We fight the Russians but we also fight Fifa, they’re just as bad,” he continues. “At this moment we have lost 40million euros of our investment in players. If this Annex 7 will keep going, which I believe will happen, we will lose another 40 million. Can you imagine how we are supposed to invest in Ukrainian football? We are not protected by Fifa, at all.
“Fifa have just killed our belief in fair game. Now we think twice about investing anything, because Fifa just come in and do whatever they want. They call it one family? What family? They treat us the same as Russian clubs, yet the war is going on in our country, not theirs.”
While clubs would be operating within the rules if they were to secure Solomon or Tete’s services for next season, there is the issue of what is simply right and wrong at play.
Yes, it is great to get a player for free, but is there a moral obligation for clubs who can afford it, whose very existence is not at threat, to pay their way anyway? Palkin certainly thinks so.
“Let me tell you a story,” Palkin continues from the departures lounge at Zagreb airport en route to London for “further meetings” – not about Solomon, he insists.
“We have one player, Vitao, who is now playing for Internacional in Brazil. They said to us that we want to buy this player. Yes, we could use Annex 7, but we understand the situation, you have a war and are struggling. We don’t want to use Annex 7 as it is not fair, so we will sign this player as normal.
“We have different stories. We have Internacional who are helpful and we have European clubs who are trying to steal our players. Opposite policies.”
Shakhtar are no strangers to a nomadic existence, where nothing is ever given to them without a struggle first.
Having already been playing home games 700km away from Donetsk for eight years, as the Russian invasion reached Kyiv, life was about to throw another dagger in Shakhtar’s direction.
And yet, after a season where air-raid alarms regularly went off during matches, Champions League home games were played in Poland, and almost their entire squad left, Shakhtar remain champions.
“We started the season with no home, no coach and no team,” Shakhtar captain Taras Stepanenko tells i. “Nobody even believed we would get close.
“Dinamo [Kyiv] would win, Dnipro would win. They kept almost all of their players. We build everything from scratch, again.
“Playing in Ukraine you don’t know what will happen in a few minutes. When we heard the air raid siren we would go to the basement. Sometimes it was two or three times a game.
“All I could think about as we were running inside, even though a bomb could be coming our way, was ‘why did we have to stop when we were on the attack on the pitch?’
“All we would speak about when we were down in the bunker was football, tactics, that kind of thing. It could take up to three hours down there. After we finish the alarm, you have to warm up again and then start from the position you had finished.
“So, so strange. But this is Ukraine now. This is life but it is an honour, my duty, to captain these young, brave players.”
Taking things day by day is all Palkin and his team can do. They have shown they can rely on youth players to stay atop the domestic top flight, but competing in the Champions League will be an altogether different story.
For now, however, the battle rages on back home in Donetsk, in the skies above Kyiv, and at the negotiating tables of clubs across the world.
“Everyone in the democratic world supports Ukraine,” Palkin adds. “Everybody is trying do things to support our fight. Everyone except Fifa and some clubs around Europe.
“The final destination will be a solidarity fund for Ukrainian clubs. This will be our biggest victory, This way we can support Ukrainian football and ensure that it survives. The fight will not stop, not from us.”
from Football - inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/cBYvfmy
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