The tension between soccer and geopolitics was once again exposed after Gianni Infantino's statements about a possible return of Russia to international competitions. From Ukraine, the response was immediate and forceful: Serhii Palkin, CEO of Shakhtar Donetsk, strongly questioned the FIFA president and accused him of being "completely detached from reality" that his country has been going through since the beginning of the war.
Palkin said he was "deeply disappointed" by the stance of the world's top soccer official and directly challenged his arguments. "We have been suffering a full-scale war for four years. Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed, and civilian, sports, and energy infrastructure has been destroyed," the executive stated in a public communiqué.
The reaction came after Infantino stated, in an interview with Sky Sports, that allowing Russia to return to competitions "is something we definitely have to do, at least in youth categories." In that regard, he maintained that the ban "has not achieved anything" and that it "has only created frustration and hatred," while he added: "having Russian boys and girls play soccer in Europe could help."
For Palkin, that view is not only wrong but dangerous. "It is not a path to peace, it is a continuation of this horror. Pretending that the war doesn't exist is not an option," he pointed out, and he stressed that soccer can't detach itself from the humanitarian context. "Soccer can't exist outside reality. It has no right to look away in the face of evil," he stated.
The Shakhtar CEO also directly challenged Infantino with a question that deepened the controversy: "Why, after four years of war, has he not come to Ukraine even once to see with his own eyes what is happening here?"
