In a way, Andriy Pavelko feels prepared for the moment when Shakhtar Donetsk and Metalist 1925 kick off a new football season on Tuesday. “When our national team played Scotland in June, I cried when the anthem was played, I just couldn’t believe it,” said the President of the Football Union of Ukraine. “And this time it will be the same. Football will be the breath of fresh air that reminds people what we are fighting and dying for.”
Just last Wednesday, Pavelko was confident that the sport would return on the date he envisioned, a day before the celebration of Ukraine’s independence. That was when the security protocols were finally signed off after lengthy discussions that were not always easy. Should fans be let in? That question was easy to answer during the war. Should the place and time of the games be kept secret? This was up for discussion, but was ultimately discarded. What happens when air raid sirens interrupt the game? No one can be quite sure how that will feel, but games can be abandoned if they sound longer than an hour. Arbitrators will consult with military advisors to make this decision.
The list of considerations is long. This is new, hardly unprecedented territory, and improvements are expected along the way. “It was a big challenge in my life,” says Pavelko, speaking animatedly at FA headquarters. The work there never really stopped: as soon as Russia invaded, there were round-the-clock efforts to evacuate teams, players, referees and coaches; Attempts to help on the humanitarian front quickly followed, and then the question of readmission.
Top-flight clubs agreed to try, but two meetings with Volodymyr Zelenskiy at the end of May were crucial in gaining political will. “I asked the question and heard a resounding ‘yes’,” he says. “They were conversations about what our society needs right now. It needs a strong signal. The President was willing to give us everything we needed to let the world know that Ukraine is a strong country and that we are confident in our victory.”
Pavelko spends the next half hour sharing a whirlwind of visits – he has traveled to every region of Ukraine at least twice since February – and personal stories that have convinced him that football is fundamental to resistance and recovery of the country was. Above all, he ends up with one who has made crystal clear the task that is being asked of him. At a hospital in Zaporizhzhia, the city that received thousands of evacuees from Mariupol, he met a boy who had broken 18 bones and suffered shrapnel wounds to his head and chest.
Each participant of this season will write himself in the history of world football
Andriy Pavelko
The 12-year-old’s blood pressure was so low he was barely alive when he arrived, and his survival is another story of the heroic work of local medics in impossible conditions. Pavelko noted that he had played football shortly before his evacuation and that his favorite player was Oleksandr Zinchenko. He immediately called the vice-captain of Ukraine, and the boy, unable to move and bursting into tears, took a video call with his idol. “He had escaped death by a hair’s breadth, just like the rest of Ukraine,” says Pavelko. Fortunately, his treatment continued in Germany and he is learning to walk again.
These tales of kinship, bravery, and sometimes tragedy could fill numerous books, and Pavelko says he would readily write one when Ukraine finally prevails. People like the boy in Mariupol unwittingly delivered the message he was trying to articulate: that in times of unimaginable horror, football is not just a frill, it has its place.
Andriy Pavelko, the Ukrainian FA President. Photo: Rob Harris/APKicking things off will be the Olympiyskiy Stadium in Kyiv, which hosted the Euro 2012 final and the 2018 Champions League final. Breathlessness is inevitable in a week when Zelenskyy is among those warning of possible Russian attacks around Independence Day. Competitors must ensure they are transferred to the floor’s air-raid shelter when instructed. It will be surreal and maybe uncomfortable, but Pavelko makes no apologies.
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“We are a brave nation,” he says. “This is an important step in raising the morale of both civilian and military personnel: to remind them that they have a future. I recently met with our referees and sent them a simple message: that every participant will be written in the history of world football. It’s a monumental achievement to share with their grandchildren, and the grandchildren will brag about it to their peers.”
It’s also a fair feat that the 16-man top flight only lost FC Mariupol and Desna Chernihiv, both of whom are on hold. But the postponement of FC Lviv’s opening game against Minaj amid hints they will struggle to fulfill games suggests the quest to keep Ukrainian football going is not over yet. Things look bleaker further down the leagues, with at least two dozen teams having to suspend or disband their activities. The second division starts again on Saturday, but there is still uncertainty among the leaders.
However, the hope is that Tuesday will send a wave of optimism across the country. Pavelko draws parallels to the famous “death match” played when Ukraine was occupied by Germany in 1942 – although considered mythologized in some circles – with one crucial difference. “Our tournament is not a story of death, but of life.”