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Ukraine football resumes in defiance of Russia war

Ukraine football resumes in defiance of Russia war

Under threat of Russian attacks in a war that paralyzed football Ukraine in February, the league starts again in kyiv on Tuesday with the aim of restoring some meaning to normal life.

The elegant Olympic stadium has hosted Europe’s biggest soccer matches in the past decade, though none as emotional as the one between Shakhtar Donetsk and Kharkiv’s Metalist 1925, both teams from eastern cities that are fighting for their existence.

The match will kick off at 1:00 p.m. local time and will be played without fans at the 65,000-capacity stadium in the city center. Players will be moved to bomb shelters if air raid alarms sound.

“We have rules in case of an alert and we have to go underground”Shakhtar captain Taras Stepanenko said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press on Monday. “But I think the teams, the players will be proud of this event.”.

“We are ready, we are strong and I think we will show the world the Ukrainian life and its desire to win”said the veteran of the national team.

The Ukrainian Premier League resumes with the consent of the authorities in a week full of great importance.

Tuesday is Flag Day in Ukraine and Wednesday the 24th is the celebration of the Independence from Moscow control that the former republic of the Soviet Union declared in 1991.

“I spoke with our president Volodymyr Zelenskyy about the importance of football as a distraction”Ukrainian football federation president Andriy Pavelko told the AP in June about his commitment to restart the competition. “We talked about how football would make it possible to help us think about the future”.

A competitive soccer match has not been played in Ukraine since mid-December, when the league had its winter break. The matches were due to resume on February 25, but the Russian military invasion began a day earlier.

The 16-team league resumes its competition without the teams Desna Chernihiv and Mariupul, both from cities that have suffered terrible destruction.

All matches will be played in and around kyiv and further west. They will be streamed indoors and outdoors on YouTube in a deal struck last week with Irish channel Setanta.

Source: Gestion

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