Darijo Srna: Ukrainian football chief calls for action not words from Premier League
By Will Unwin
The director of football at one of Ukraine’s most successful clubs Shakhtar Donetsk has hit out at the Premier League for their lack of practical help since Russia’s invasion.
There have been many shows of solidarity and gestures of support from the Premier League and its clubs but former Croatia international Darijo Srna believes they should be doing far more to assist Ukraine’s players.
Uefa and Fifa have allowed players at Ukrainian clubs to move outside of the transfer window but the Premier League, among others, have not sanctioned any deals as they believe it will damage the sporting integrity of the competition.
“Uefa and Fifa protect us but England did not open the transfer window to register the players, Italy and Germany the same,” Srna tells ITV News.
“This is not the way to help Ukrainian players. Up to today only Uefa and Fifa have helped, England did not help.
“What is the sense of opening the transfer window if other federations, including the Premier League, do not want to open to register the players? It makes no sense.
“This is not the help we need, it is unhelpful. It is not just important to speak, someone must do something concrete to help Ukrainian football and its players. Uefa and Fifa are doing that, but at the moment I don’t see concrete things from Italy, German or the English Premier League.”
Due to the invasion the domestic league was stopped and Ukraine’s World Cup playoff against Scotland postponed.
The majority of the club’s Ukrainian players have stayed in the country, many helping with the humanitarian effort that Shakhtar are at the heart of, helping to turn Arena Lviv into a refugee centre, providing those fleeing with food and supplies. Shakhtar helped their foreign contingent of players leave the country, with the assistance of Uefa president Aleksander Ceferin. They organised a border crossing into Romania and have since departed for their homelands, while Italian head coach Roberto De Zerbi also returned home.
Captain Junior Moraes has returned to Brazil to join Corinthians, while others await potential moves to keep up their fitness, but vultures are circling in the hope of making the most of a desperate situation.
Shakhtar's players left Ukraine in February
“We have a lot of agents that want to use the situation to take players for free from the club, they want to use this war to their advantage,” says Srna.
“In the end they will not succeed because we are protected by Uefa and Fifa until 30 June and step-by-step everything will be OK and there will be peace but I just want to say that unfortunately there are currently a lot of people who want to use this situation and take our players for free.
“That is not human, that is not professional but we will find a way to beat them.”
Shakhtar moved their staff and headquarters to Kyiv in 2020 after basing themselves previously in Lviv and Kharkiv following Russia’s invasion of Crimea in 2014.
Amid the current invasion, Russia have also applied to host the European Championships in 2028, a move which has shocked those in football - Boris Johnson described the move as “beyond satire”.
“I cannot believe they asked for it,” says Srna. “Just because of this question, they must all go to jail.”
“They are joking, they are out of their minds, they live in their own world, they have lived so long in their own world, not in our world.”
Shakhtar’s president Rinat Akhmetov is organising relief for those looking to escape and has helped the club’s academy players, alongside Srna, to travel to safety in Croatia.
"This is a war aggression, a war crime and a crime against humanity, against my country and the Ukrainians,” Akhmetov says. “Now our villages, cities, and towns, infrastructure facilities are being destroyed. The most dreadful part is that peaceful civilians are suffering and being killed.
"Russia is an aggressor state, and Putin is a war criminal. Because Ukraine has always been a peaceful country and has never attacked anyone. Now our villages, cities, towns, and infrastructure facilities are being destroyed, peaceful civilians are suffering and being killed.
"What is unfolding here is a war crime and a crime against humanity, against Ukraine and the Ukrainians. This can neither be explained nor justified.
"Putin is aiming at countries that have democracy, freedom, and independence. So all the free world countries are potential targets. If Ukraine together with you [Western countries] fails to stop him, nobody knows who's next.”