Reporter Han Bing reported that on February 24, Russia launched a special military operation in the Donbass region of Ukraine, and the Conflict between Russia and Ukraine escalated in an all-round way. Subsequently, Ukraine declared the whole territory into a wartime state, which is even worse for Ukrainian football, which has withered away in recent years due to social unrest and the outbreak of civil war. The Ukrainian Football Federation and the Professional League have announced a total suspension of the Professional Leagues of Ukraine at all levels in view of the wartime situation in Ukraine.
As early as November 2013, the situation in Ukraine was turbulent, and the Ukrainian Super League had been forced to postpone the second half of the spring of 2014. In March 2014, the Crimean crisis broke out, and in May the civil war broke out in Donbass in eastern Ukraine, and all levels of Ukrainian leagues were forced to be empty. Crimea's Simferopol, Sevastopol and Mariupol clubs in the eastern state of Donetsk can only temporarily place their home stadiums in the capital Kiev. The home stadium of the Luhansk Dawn Club was destroyed in the war, and the donetsk miners temporarily moved to Cherkasy in central Ukraine when the situation in Oudong was at its worst.
In the 2014/15 season, as Crimea merged into Russia, Simferopol and Sevastopol no longer played in the Ukrainian Super League, and eventually the Ukrainian Super League determined that the league participating clubs were reduced from 16 to 14. Clubs affected by the civil wars in Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine, the tamers of Donetsk moved to Lviv in western Ukraine, the four clubs of Metallurgists, Olympics and Mariupol wandered in many stadiums in Kiev, Lviv and other cities, and the Luhansk Dawn Club moved to Zaporizhia outside the conflict zone.
Due to the continuation of the civil war in Ukraine and the social and economic crisis, the Ukrainian Super League has been on the verge of collapse for 8 years. Every season, clubs quit due to financial difficulties and had to find replacement clubs. Once the only Club of Miners Donetsk to rival Dynamo Kiev, the Ukrainian civil war had to leave its original home stadium and "borrow" in Lviv, Odessa, Zaporizhia and Kiev, far from the original fan gathering places. Although it did not affect the club's performance overall, the league structure and youth foundation of Ukrainian football suffered a serious blow.
In the 2016/17 Ukrainian Super League was again downsized to 12 clubs, miners played in Kharkiv and Lviv in the season, and Donetsk Olympiad even played in 5 stadiums throughout the season. The Ukrainian Premier League has just expanded to 16 teams this season, with Shakhtar Donetsk (home in Kiev) and Luhansk Dawn (home at Zaporizhia) finally fixing home games, but again suffering a war-related league suspension at the beginning of the second half of the season. There are no Ukrainian teams participating in the three Continental European competitions this season, which will not affect future competitions.
In recent years, there is no shortage of precedents for the temporary suspension or even cutting off of the league due to civil strife and war, and there have been such tragedies in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Georgia, Syria and Iraq. In the 1999 Kosovo crisis, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was forced to cut down at the end of March. The Syrian civil war broke out in 2011, and the Syrian league that season was forced to cut off. Perhaps after this conflict, Ukrainian football will also recover like the above four countries, but the losses suffered as a result may be irreparable.
It is not only Ukraine that may be hit by the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, UEFA said it will hold an emergency meeting on Friday local time, and a number of foreign media posts expect that UEFA will most likely disqualify Russia from Hosting this season's Champions League final in St. Petersburg.
In addition, there are reports that UEFA is also considering abolishing Gazprom's sponsorship contract for the Champions League and the next two European Championships. At the same time, whether the Russian Premier League team is still eligible to participate in next season's European competition, and whether the Russian national team can participate in the World Cup European Qualifier play-off in March, and even the 2023/24 European Nations League and Euro 2024 qualifiers, have also been marked with question marks.
At present, the Polish, Swedish and Czech football associations have issued a joint statement, saying that they will not travel to Russia to participate in the World Preliminary Tournament. In 1992, due to international sanctions from the Yugoslav civil war, UEFA stripped the former Yugoslavia of its qualifications and was replaced by Denmark, who finished second in the qualifiers, and the Danish team created a miracle of winning the championship.