How Ukrainians are uniting behind Shakhtar in London
Shakhtar Donetsk will be playing Champions League home games at Stamford Bridge this season. It is a scenario nobody wants ideally, but the UK's Ukrainian community is making the best of a difficult situation.
Key points
- Shakhtar Donetsk will play their home Champions League fixtures this season at Chelsea's Stamford Bridge in London, starting with AEK Athens on Wednesday.
- Ukrainian fans in the UK see the London games as a chance to reunite and support their club, which has been displaced since 2014 and forced to play home matches in several countries.
- Chief executive Sergei Palkin says the club's role in London includes reminding people what is happening in Ukraine, where daily life is marked by uncertainty and attacks.
Shakhtar Donetsk will play their home Champions League matches this season at Chelsea's Stamford Bridge in London. The first fixture is against AEK Athens on Wednesday, and Real Madrid, Sporting and Fenerbahce will also visit.
The Ukrainian club has been without a home since 2014, when Russian-backed forces took Donetsk. Since then Shakhtar have played in Kyiv, Lviv and Kharkiv in Ukraine, and in Poland, Slovenia and Germany for European games.
Fans find community in London
Artem Genne, a Shakhtar supporter who left Donetsk and now lives in the West Midlands, plans to attend all four London games. He said meeting people from his home area abroad gives "a sense of home and hope" and that fans in the UK have been supportive.
Dima Prasolov, who left Donetsk for Kyiv and now lives in Kent, said he was ecstatic to buy a four-game pass, calling it the first time in about 15 years he could buy something like a season ticket. He said watching the team regularly has been almost impossible since the Russian invasion.
It's way more than just football and analysing a player's performance and goals. It's way, way more than that.
— Artem Genne
Club faces daily uncertainty
Shakhtar chief executive Sergei Palkin said the club moved their under-12 team to a safer area of Kyiv after recent attacks, and that their women's side had a match disrupted by a nearby drone strike. He said every day the team goes to the pitch is "much more than football" because of the challenges behind it.
Palkin said part of Shakhtar's role when playing in London and other European cities is to send messages and remind people what is going on. He said seeing Ukraine represented in the Champions League means "that we are alive" and that the country continues to fight and compete.
Visas limit some supporters
Some in Ukraine were sceptical about the London games because a UK visa costs £135 and must be applied for at least three months in advance. One Shakhtar fan, speaking anonymously, said that sort of money is a monthly income for some Ukrainians and that no-one has time to wait months for a visa.
Many fans are expected to travel from within the UK, where Shakhtar's ticket allocations for recent games in England sold out in an hour. Fans will also gather in pubs around the country, and the club plans activities with Ukrainian children in London.
