Shakhtar Donetsk dream of one day taking Champions League football back to Ukraine but a temporary home at Chelsea’s Stamford Bridge helps keep the war-torn nation’s struggles “visible”, according to the club’s chief executive Sergei Palkin.
Shakhtar were forced to flee their home city in 2014, just two years after hosting the European Championship, after war broke out in the Donbas region but could still play their European games in western Ukraine.
They reached the semi-finals of the Conference League last season and the last four of the Europa League in 2020. Despite the war, the club remain a hothouse for developing Brazilian talent with 14 players among the current squad from the South American nation. However, since Russia’s invasion in 2022, all European club matches and national team games have taken place abroad due to the security situation.
Former Turkey and Atletico Madrid midfielder Arda Turan is the latest promising manager making waves at Shakhtar.
“We are representing our country and want to be visible for Ukraine,” Palkin told the BBC. “We are looking on the positive side of being but we are dreaming of the day that we can play in Ukraine again,” Turan said on Tuesday.
