Russian Invasion of Ukraine (2022)

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    UEFA Opens a Door to Russia’s Return in Soccer, and Faces a Backlash

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    The angry reactions to a vote by European soccer’s governing body to partly lift its ban on Russian teams could be a preview of fights in other sports.European soccer’s governing body is facing angry criticism and open defiance from some of its member nations after a vote by its executive committee earlier this week partially lifted a blanket ban on Russian teams that was imposed after last year’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.The proposal to allow Russia’s teams to participate in qualifying for the European men’s and women’s under-17 championships that will be held next year, and for which qualifying has already begun, came as a surprise to many members of the governing body, UEFA. Its approval has reopened what many believed was a bitter but settled debate about solidarity with Ukraine.Ukraine’s national soccer federation quickly objected to the vote, arguing that allowing even Russian youth teams to return to tournaments “tolerates Russia’s aggressive policy.” Several federations, including Sweden, Norway and a group of Baltic nations, noted that the conditions that had led to the initial ban remained unchanged, and they invited punishment by saying that they would refuse to play Russian opponents under any circumstances.The tensions in soccer could be a preview of difficult discussions playing out in dozens of sports over the reintegration of Russia and its athletes into global sports ahead of next year’s Paris Olympics. And the angry reaction to the decision highlighted of the difficulty of balancing official solidarity with Ukraine — and opposition to Russian aggression in Ukraine — against the rights of athletes, even youth players, with little say in the actions of their governments.The differences at times appear irreconcilable. A bloc of Western nations, for example, continues to lobby against efforts by the International Olympic Committee to create conditions in which Russian athletes will be allowed to participate in the Paris Games as neutrals. And sports as diverse as tennis and fencing have already seen the effects of the war provoke confrontations and snubs at their competitions.On Friday, Russian athletes received more positive news when the International Paralympic Committee cleared them to compete at the Games that will take place in Paris after next year’s Summer Olympics. The committee voted to allow them to take part as neutrals, without their national emblems or flag.European soccer officials, for their part, were struggling to understand why their organization’s powerful president, Aleksander Ceferin of Slovenia, had chosen to drag their sport back into the dispute. Mr. Ceferin had repeatedly said that the blanket ban on Russian teams would remain in place “until the war ends,” they were quick to note, and the competitive concerns behind the original ban — that the refusal of teams to play Russia made tournament draws unworkable and potentially unfair — had not changed.The stage for the fight was unusual as well. Youth tournaments usually merit little attention at the leadership meetings of European soccer’s governing body, often consigned to cursory updates at the bottom of a long agenda. But this week was different.The closed-door gathering at a hotel in Cyprus was about 90 minutes old when Mr. Ceferin spoke up and put forward a motion. He asked the committee to partially lift a ban on Russian soccer teams that had been imposed after the invasion of Ukraine so that Russia’s junior teams could return to European competition.The president of European soccer’s governing body, Aleksander Ceferin, defended the vote to allow Russian teams to return to continental competitions.Daniel Cole/Associated PressMr. Ceferin left little doubt about his preference. Arguing that it was not right to punish children, he cited his own experience growing up in Slovenia during the breakup of the former Yugoslavia and referenced a United Nations charter on the rights of children before allowing others in the room to speak. While most of the officials remained silent — typical in such gatherings, where decisions are usually agreed before a formal vote — Poland’s representative, the former star player Zbigniew Boniek, offered passionate opposition.Mr. Boniek took the floor for about five minutes, pointing out that children in Ukraine, too, continued to suffer because of the war. He said that nothing had changed since the decision to bar Russia was made only days after the start of the war in February 2022.A Romanian official in the room, who did not have a vote, also spoke. He reminded the board that Russia’s war was also affecting children in other European countries. The war, he said, was forcing budget cuts on services in Romania to account for increases in military spending.The representatives from England and Wales joined Boniek in abstaining when the vote was taken, but the motion passed anyway. The repercussions began almost immediately.A handful of European soccer federations immediately said they would not play against Russian teams should they be paired against them in qualification tournaments. Sweden, whose representative at UEFA, Karl-Erik Nilsson, voted for the plan to allow Russian teams to return, went further: It said it would bar Russian players from traveling to next year’s women’s under-17 finals in Sweden should the team qualify.It is unclear what motivated UEFA’s decision to open the door to Russia’s return. Mr. Ceferin’s initiative was not widely shared with officials within the organization before the vote, something that typically happens so the organization can game out the implications of a decision, and the practical consequences are significant: The qualifying draws for both the men’s and women’s under-17 championships were made without Russia, and men’s teams have already begun playing matches. Women’s qualifying begins next week.If the decision is not reversed, UEFA now faces the specter of having to take disciplinary action against countries who refuse to play against Russian opponents. Still, its president was unmoved.Ukrainian boys at a damaged stadium in Irpin. Poland’s representative at the UEFA meeting pointed out that children in Ukraine continued to suffer because of the war.Nicole Tung for The New York Times“By banning children from our competitions, we not only fail to recognize and uphold a fundamental right for their holistic development but we directly discriminate against them,” Mr. Ceferin said in comments published by UEFA after the vote. “By providing opportunities to play and compete with their peers from all over Europe, we are investing in what we hope will be a brighter and more capable future generation and a better tomorrow.”Ukraine’s soccer federation said the return of Russian teams to competitions “in the midst of hostilities conducted by the Russian Federation against Ukraine is groundless and such that it tolerates Russia’s aggressive policy.”Its unequivocal refusal to play Russian opposition was matched by a group of European federations that included the Baltic nations, England, Wales, Norway and Denmark, whose president, like his Swedish counterpart, is a close ally of Mr. Ceferin and did not speak out to oppose Russia’s return during the vote in Cyprus.The ban against Russia’s senior teams will continue until the end of the war, Mr. Ceferin said, reiterating a position he made clear following a charity soccer game in Slovenia earlier this month. At the time, Serbian media quoted the UEFA president as saying “Ask Putin” when he was asked when the ban would be lifted.For now, that question is the least of UEFA’s problems. First it has to hurriedly devise a calendar that will allow Russian teams to enter events that have already begun, keep them away from opponents who are refusing to play them, and do it all even as the list of potential opponents could diminish as more national federations consider whether to heed Ukraine’s call to refuse to play. More

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      How the War in Ukraine Turned Tennis Into a Battlefield

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      It was a few days before the start of Wimbledon this summer, and Elina Svitolina, just off a flight from Geneva, had come to the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club to check in for the tournament. She was returning after a year’s absence. “It feels like it has been 10 years,” she said as she got out of the car. A lot had happened since she last competed at Wimbledon, in 2021. She had given birth to a daughter named Skaï, the first child for her and her husband, the French player Gaël Monfils. Also, her country, Ukraine, had been invaded by Russia.Listen to This ArticleFor more audio journalism and storytelling, More

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      Marketa Vondrousova Ends Elina Svitolina’s Wimbledon Run

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      Vondrousova beat Svitolina, the Ukrainian tennis star who had won the hearts of fans, in straight sets to advance to the women’s singles final.Elina Svitolina’s storybook run at Wimbledon came to an agonizing end on Thursday as she lost her semifinal match against Marketa Vondrousova of the Czech Republic in straight sets.Svitolina, a new mother from Ukraine who has become a symbol of defiance since the Russian invasion in February 2022 — especially so during her runs at the French Open and Wimbledon — fell to Vondrousova, 6-3, 6-3, on an error-filled afternoon under the roof on Centre Court.For 10 days, Svitolina, who needed a wild card to get into the tournament, had played tennis with a combination of freedom and defiance that thrilled the British crowd, especially during her win over 19th-seeded Victoria Azarenka of Belarus in the fourth round, when she prevailed in a final set tiebreaker after Azarenka appeared to have the match all but won. Two days later, Svitolina toppled Iga Swiatek of Poland, the world No. 1 and four-time Grand Slam champion, in another tense and emotional three-set triumph.She spoke of how the war and being a new mother had changed her and her approach to tennis, even making her better because she had a new perspective on the sport.“I don’t take difficult situations as like a disaster,” she said. “There are worse things in life. I’m just more calmer.”But then she ran into Vondrousova, a talented and tricky left-handed player who may not have anything close to the résumé of Swiatek and Azarenka — or Sofia Kenin or Venus Williams, two of Svitolina’s other victims at this tournament — but she played as if she did.Vondrousova, who was a ranked No. 1 in the world as a junior and reached the French Open final in 2019, is developing a habit of playing the spoiler. At the Tokyo Olympics, she eliminated Naomi Osaka of Japan, the national hero and international star who had lit the Olympic torch at the opening ceremony, and went on to win a silver medal.Against Svitolina, she displayed every bit of the skill that she has shown in her best matches, showing off a varied attack that includes rolling forehands, drop shots and a penchant for going to the net to finish points at every opportunity. Being left-handed also helps. It forces opponents to adjust to different spins than they normally face and to switch the direction of their attack if they want to get the ball onto her backhand.She had plenty of help from Svitolina, who during the first hour of the match looked as if she had lost the ethereal feel for the ball that had characterized her play throughout so much of the tournament. Swiatek has spoken about how this version of Svitolina, who spent so much of her maternity leave raising money for war relief in Ukraine, was so different.“She played with more freedom and more guts,” Swiatek said. “Sometimes she really just let go of her hand and she played really, really fast.”That version of Svitolina appeared only briefly. In the second set, down a set and 4-0, she broke Vondrousova’s serve twice to gain a chance to even the set.The crowd, which had wanted so badly to help swing the match in her favor, came alive as Svitolina let out a scream and a fist pump and skipped toward her chair for the changeover. But as soon as she seized the momentum, she gave it right back. More

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      Elina Svitolina Of Ukraine One Match Away From Wimbledon Final

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      Svitolina, a new mother who has said she is playing to give strength to her people back home in Ukraine, is one match away from an improbable and inspiring spot in the Wimbledon final.It is time to consider whether having a child, and spending a year away from the sport to raise money to help her compatriots back home in Ukraine, have made Elina Svitolina an even better tennis player.She says they have, and there is no reason not to believe her.Svitolina’s improbable run at Wimbledon rolled on in grand fashion on Tuesday. Two days after Svitolina, a new mother who needed a wild card to get into the tournament, beat the former world No. 1 Victoria Azarenka of Belarus in an emotional and dramatic triumph, Svitolina beat the current world No. 1, Iga Swiatek.Svitolina, playing with pluck, steeliness and a higher purpose, matched the hard-hitting Swiatek shot for shot, and then some, on the most hallowed court in the sport, sending joy through a crowd that had been with her since her first shot of a tournament that she had thought would be over for her by now.When the match was over, Svitolina put a hand over her face, hugged Swiatek from across the net and then raised two arms to the crowd in a shrug of disbelief.“I don’t know what is happening right now,” Svitolina told them moments later.Some things are hard to explain.Shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine 18 months ago, Svitolina announced that she was taking a break from professional tennis because she was pregnant with her first child with her husband, Gaël Monfils, the veteran tour pro and tennis showman from France.Tennis was barely a priority then anyway. Her pregnancy was at the top of the list, and so was raising money for war relief efforts in her homeland. Her foundation has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars since the start of the war.In October, she and Monfils announced the birth of their daughter, Skai. Not long afterward, Svitolina began training and practicing for her return to the WTA Tour, in March at the BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells.Svitolina, right, beat the current world No. 1, Iga Swiatek, at Wimbledon on Tuesday.Julian Finney/Getty ImagesIt didn’t go well at first, as she lost six of her first seven matches, but Svitolina — a graceful and deceptively powerful player who had been ranked as high as third in the world as recently as 2019 — slowly started to regain her feel for the ball and for the competition.And she made it clear, especially during the French Open in Paris, that tennis was no longer about money or ranking points. It was about trying to bring some joy to the people of Ukraine.She did plenty of that as she surged into the quarterfinals at Wimbledon. Still, she had made it past the second round there just twice in eight tries and had not competed on grass since 2021 until last month. Her hopes were so low that she bought tickets to a Harry Styles concert last week, assuming she would be free.She wasn’t, and after her win over Swiatek on Tuesday, she said she did not think she was going to take the pop star up on his offer to invite her to a concert anytime soon.“It was very sweet from him,” she said of Styles’s offer. “Hopefully one day I can go.”It will have to wait at least until after her semifinal match on Thursday against Marketa Vondrousova of the Czech Republic, who beat Jessica Pegula of the United States in three sets. A win over Vondrousova might very well set up a showdown in the finals with a player from Belarus (Aryna Sabalenka) or with Elena Rybakina, the defending champion, who grew up in Russia but represents Kazakhstan. Sabalenka and Rybakina play their quarterfinal matches Wednesday and are heavy favorites.That is down the road, though, and would surely bring tension similar to that in Svitolina’s fourth-round win over Azarenka. Players from Russia and Belarus were prohibited from playing in the tournament last year, and while they have been mostly warmly received, Svitolina and the other players from Ukraine have refused to shake hands with players from those countries.Azarenka was booed off the court — unfairly so, Svitolina said — after Svitolina had beaten her Sunday, even though Azarenka gave Svitolina a thumbs-up after the final point. Last year, Azarenka offered to play in a charity fund-raiser to benefit war relief efforts, though players from Ukraine told her not to. But the boos still rained down.Svitolina announced that she was taking a break from professional tennis in 2022 because she was pregnant with her first child with her husband, Gaël Monfils.Pool photo by Daniel ColeSwiatek, who is from Poland and is a staunch critic of the invasion, has done more than any player not from Ukraine to help war relief efforts.But there was no shortage of healthy tension in Tuesday’s match. Swiatek, a four-time Grand Slam tournament champion, appeared to be in control early and even served for the first set at 5-4. She then missed on a series of tentative and wild forehands and first serves. Svitolina kept making her shots on tight wires, clearing the net by mere inches, time and again for the rest of the afternoon.She won 16 of the final 18 points in the first set. As the roof closed with rain on the way, a panicked Swiatek headed to the corner of the court, begging her team for answers.“I felt like I’m making pretty much the same mistakes,” Swiatek said. “I wanted some tip, what they think I should actually focus on. Sometimes when something is not working, it’s hard to find a reason because there are maybe a few reasons.”The biggest reason of all was Svitolina, who said later that she had been playing with a different sort of inspiration. She had spent parts of the last two days watching videos of her child in Ukraine watching her matches on a phone. She knows what her victories mean and where they fit in the grand scheme of things.All of that has a power.“War made me stronger and also made me mentally stronger,” she said. “I don’t take difficult situations as like a disaster, you know? There are worse things in life. I’m just more calmer.”Have no doubt: She desperately wants to win, but her experience of the pressure has changed.“I look at the things a bit differently,” she said.After she walked off the court, she placed a call over FaceTime to Monfils, who — along with her mother and his — is taking care of their daughter at one of their homes. She said Skai hadn’t talked to her much. She was distracted by a serving of ice cream.Can she win this tournament and the biggest prize of all?She insisted, as she had after the Azarenka match, that she wasn’t meant to go this far. She isn’t letting her husband come, because he has not been here yet, and she is not messing with her routine now. Who needs him anyway, when she has another purpose and another power, especially against those opponents from Russia and Belarus?“Each time I play against them, it’s big motivation, big responsibility,” she said. “Right now it’s very, very far. It seems very close, but it’s very far from this.” More

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      Andriy Shevchenko and Ukraine Wait for a Tomorrow They Can’t See

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      Soccer is not a priority in Ukraine, nor should it be. But the country’s greatest player says it still has a vital role to play in his nation’s sense if itself.There are certain things Andriy Shevchenko cannot talk about. The feeling generated by the wailing of an air-raid siren. The dread instilled by learning just how many missiles had been aimed the previous night at you, your loved ones, your home. The sensation of knowing another swarm of drones is on its way, the only hope that each one can be shot from the sky.Shevchenko does not want to repeat all he has heard from the Ukrainian soldiers posted to the battlefield, that rift that runs through places that were once nearby and familiar but are now alien, part of a terrifying front line. He starts and stops, swallowing hard, unable to go on. “I don’t want to speak about what is going on,” he said.One of the stories he cannot quite bring himself to tell comes from Irpin, a city on the northwestern edge of the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, that was the scene of some of the bloodiest, most intense fighting in the early days of the war. Its streets were pounded by airstrikes. A mass grave was found in neighboring Bucha.When Ukrainian forces, after a monthlong counteroffensive, reclaimed control of the city, they found it scarred beyond recognition. Some estimates had it that 70 percent of its structures had been destroyed or damaged. Among them was the city’s soccer stadium.A few months later, Shevchenko went to visit. As he walked around the fractured shell of the place — the artificial-turf field pockmarked with the scars of war, the ramshackle stands charred black — he saw a group of children playing soccer, doing their best to stage a game despite the ruin all around them, and at least mildly oblivious to the fact that Shevchenko, the greatest player their country has ever produced, was watching.Dark spots mark bomb damage on a soccer field in Irpin, Ukraine, in 2022.Valentyn Ogirenko/ReutersOne of the strengths Ukrainians in general have discovered during the war, Shevchenko has found, is an ability “to adapt to circumstances, to react to the situation as it is now.” Here it was, being played out in front of him.When he asked the children what it was like having to play here, in a place where a stadium used to be, they replied in that matter-of-fact manner that is the natural tone of the preteen: They might not have a stadium, they said, but that did not mean they did not want to play soccer.As the fighting was escalating in Irpin, Heorhiy Sudakov — a sparkling young midfielder with Shakhtar Donetsk — was, like so many in Ukraine, seeking shelter wherever he could find it. He sent one of his former coaches a photo from an air-raid bunker. In the image, his pregnant wife, Lisa, rested her head on his shoulder.A little more than a year later, Sudakov has spent two weeks announcing himself as one of the brightest talents in European soccer. He helped drive Ukraine’s teams to the semifinals of the European Under-21 Championship in Georgia, scoring three times in five games, including two in the quarterfinal victory against France.The 20-year-old striker Heorhiy Sudakov, right, led Ukraine to the semifinals of the European Under-21 Championship.Robert Ghement/EPA, via ShutterstockThat Ukraine was unceremoniously eliminated in the final four by Spain — which will face England in the final this weekend — would, in normal circumstances, act as a sort of bathetic coda to its tournament. Ukraine’s circumstances, though, are anything but normal. In that light, its performance has been a resounding, uplifting triumph.“What the under-21s have done is an incredible achievement,” Shevchenko said in an interview this week. “Ukraine has always provided great talent — maybe not every year, but every few years, we have a young player who can go up to the senior squad. You need to build that platform. Watching what they have done in this tournament gives hope to us, and to the next generation, for the future.”Nobody in Ukraine knows, of course, what that future looks like. Since the country’s soccer league resumed last August, Ukraine’s clubs have grown used to playing against the eerie backdrop of empty stadiums. Games have been interrupted by those same air-raid sirens that still send a shiver down Shevchenko’s spine. Dozens of foreign players left the country after being given dispensation by FIFA to break their contracts.Several teams, including Shakhtar, temporarily relocated their academy systems abroad — spiriting players and members of their families out of the country — to protect them from the Russian invasion. Some clubs, Shakhtar most prominent among them, still find themselves exiled from their homes, their traditional territories now on the other side of the front line.It is impossible to say when, or if, any of that will change. Like everything else in the country, every person in every aspect of life, Ukrainian soccer has no idea what tomorrow will bring.“We live in the moment,” Shevchenko said. “Everything depends on the war. The situation could change every day. We try to make plans, sometimes short-term, sometimes a little longer. But we have to react every day.“We do the best we can to let the athletes train, to help them be ready to play — that is what all of us, every club, are trying to do. We have the resources to do that at the moment. But we cannot plan anything for the future, because the moment we do, everything could change. That is what we have to do. There is not a different way. We just have to keep living and try to do the best we can.”In light of all that is happening in Ukraine, soccer is not a priority, nor should it be. It is difficult, in many ways, to think that it matters at all. But talking to Shevchenko is to be reminded of Jürgen Klopp’s old aphorism: Perhaps it is the most important of the least important things.Shevchenko playing soccer with children in Irpin, in a photograph from United24, President Volodymyr Zelensky’s fund-raising platform.United24Sports, after all, remain a potent way of reminding people of what Ukraine has been through — is going through. They are a way of keeping the country uppermost in the fickle thoughts of the outside world, a gleaming example of what the historian Eric Hobsbawm described as the “imagined community of millions seeming more real as a team of eleven named people.”Soccer has, by and large, embraced that role. “It has a power to unite people,” Shevchenko said. “To send a message of solidarity.” Stadiums across Europe have been festooned with Ukrainian flags. Messages demanding peace have appeared on television screens and advertising boards — a gesture that is, without question, too small, a coward’s way out from Europe’s ever-compromised soccer authorities, but is a gesture nonetheless.When Shevchenko, with his successor as Ukraine’s national team captain, Oleksandr Zinchenko — both ambassadors for United24, the country’s official fund-raising platform — decided to arrange an exhibition game to help rebuild a school in the village of Chernihiv, support was immediate and enthusiastic. Chelsea, one of Shevchenko’s former clubs, volunteered the use of Stamford Bridge for the match, called the Game4Ukraine, on Aug. 5. DAZN and Sky agreed to broadcast it. A parade of stars quickly agreed to play.“It is a good chance for us to remind people that the war is still going on,” Shevchenko said. “Oleksandr and I have done a lot of interviews, to try to keep it in the news, so that the rest of the world does not forget, so that people keep helping, because we need them to know that we cannot do this without them.”For Ukraine, every event featuring one of its teams is now a rallying point, and a chance to tell its story.Martin Meissner/Associated PressBut soccer matters for another reason. It is telling that the success of Ukraine’s under-21 team — as well as an encouraging start as national team manager for Serhiy Rebrov, Shevchenko’s old strike partner — has not gone unnoticed within Ukraine, that the achievements of Sudakov and his teammates have been celebrated, even as the sirens have sounded.“There is still room for life, still room for sport,” Shevchenko said. “That is why we are fighting: for the right to have a normal life. Even during the war, we try to live as best we can. It has to be day to day.”The conversation he had with the children in Irpin inspired Shevchenko. When he left, he set about raising the money — roughly 600,000 euros, or $650,000 — it would take to ensure that they could both play soccer and have a stadium. He arranged a gala in Milan, the city he long called home. The club where he became a superstar, and possibly the best striker of his generation, A.C. Milan, kicked in €150,000 toward the project.The plan is to begin work on the stadium this summer. It is impossible, of course, to plan for anything with absolute certainty. Ukrainians have, in the course of 18 fearful, defiant, harrowing months, grown used to the idea that things might change at a moment’s notice. They do not know what tomorrow will bring. But they know there will be a tomorrow.CorrespondenceThis week brought a regrettable, but undeniable, turn in the timbre of correspondence. This is, as we all know, a conspiratorial age — the false flags, the deep state, the thing about orcas ganging up and attacking boats — and that paranoia now seems to have filtered through to the last bastion of enlightenment thinking: my inbox.“Writing that Botafogo, RWD Molenbeek and Lyon are linked together without mentioning Crystal Palace,” an exasperated Nicholas Armstrong wrote after receiving last week’s newsletter, “is like saying whales, dolphins and porpoises are linked without mentioning any other more familiar mammal.”I am not entirely certain which mammal is missing from that list — sharks, maybe? — but I stand by my entirely deliberate omission: not because I have not yet forgiven Palace for the whole Alan Pardew thing in 1990, but because, unlike that particular set of clubs, Palace is not owned exclusively by John Textor. It is, instead, a partial member of two networks: one belonging to Textor, and one operated by Bolt Football. And that would have been confusing.Glyn Kirk/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesPaul Gerald, meanwhile, has been pondering an unexplainable, at least to him, coincidence. “Whenever there is a neutral venue final, each team always attacks the end containing their fans in the second half,” he wrote.He added, “There are three ways this could happen: crazy coincidence; teams just always picking that way, regardless of who wins the coin toss; or prearrangement.” In this scenario, he suggested, “no real coin toss ever happens.”There is, I suspect, a slightly simpler explanation: Both teams go into the coin toss intending to kick toward their own fans in the second half. There is a possibility, though, that there is a degree of confirmation bias at play here, too. My guess would be it happens less often than you believe — you just notice when it does.Victor Gallo, thankfully, wants to return to the world of facts. Last week’s newsletter taught him that the Colombian league is divided into Apertura and Clausura stages. “I thought only Mexico employed that division,” he wrote. “I imagine it is not just Mexico and Colombia. But what’s the reason behind splitting the season up?”That is a great question, and not one I have previously considered. It means you can hand out more trophies? It delivers satisfaction more quickly? It means you can stage a grand final at the end? If anyone can shed any light, it would be enormously helpful.And finally, with a nod to William Ireland, a confession. Last week’s newsletter asserted that nobody — other than Red Bull — had really made the multiclub model work in soccer as yet. “Best practices being shared, discount transfer fees, places to park players all sound good,” he wrote. “None seem to be actually happening in any of the multiclubs, and I’m not sure how they would.”Nor am I, but there was one element that I neglected to mention (and was pointed out to me, anonymously, by an executive at one of the teams involved in a network). Off the field, the advantages are legion. Adding more clubs enables a group to increase the asset value of each — by building infrastructure, improving performance, pooling resources — which helps the value of the whole business grow. It may well be that is the real purpose of the whole exercise. More

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      Proceeds of $3.1 Billion Chelsea Sale Have Not Reached Ukraine War Victims

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      A $3.1 billion fund was established when Roman Abramovich was forced to sell the club, but the fund’s head says a “bureaucratic quagmire” has kept the money frozen.It was the biggest price paid for a soccer team, and for a while the biggest price paid for a sports team anywhere in the world. And the enormous proceeds were to create what would be one of the biggest humanitarian charities ever established.But 13 months after the forced sale of Chelsea F.C. after the British government sanctioned its Russian oligarch owner, Roman Abramovich, the charity has yet to be established and not a cent of the $3.1 billion (2.5 billion pounds) has gone toward its intended purpose: providing aid to victims of the war in Ukraine.The person picked to lead the charity, which is so far behind schedule it has yet to be given a name, has described his efforts as being “stuck in a bureaucratic quagmire.”Months of talks with British government officials have so far failed to yield anything approximating a breakthrough even as the war rages on and the need for support has only grown, said Mike Penrose, former executive director of the U.K. Committee for the United Nations Children’s Fund, who was tapped to lead the charity. The government’s is required before any transfer of the money from a frozen bank account to the charity, to ensure that none of the money is funneled to Russia, or to Abramovich.At the heart of the stalemate is the government’s insistence that any money can be spent only within Ukraine’s borders, an edict that stems from an agreement with the European Union over how funds can be distributed. Abramovich secured Portuguese citizenship in murky circumstances a few years before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.Penrose, backed by other nongovernmental organizations, said placing restrictions on spending to victims of the war in Ukraine would not allow the charity to provide support to millions of others affected directly and indirectly by the war, a group as disparate as refugees living in countries bordering Ukraine and those living in Horn of Africa countries like Somalia who were plunged into starvation because of a shortage of Ukrainian grain.“We couldn’t help them under the current conditions,” Penrose said in a telephone interview.British officials have been wary of any of the proceeds of the sale making their way to Russia or back to Abramovich, who shortly after Russia’s invasion was deemed to enjoy a “close relationship” for decades with its president, Vladimir V. Putin. The relationship between the men was not a problem for the British when Abramovich first arrived at Chelsea in 2003, or as he spent the next two decades plowing his vast resources into the team, lifting it to become one of the top soccer clubs in the world.Abramovich had first proposed the charity when he put the club up for sale last year.On May 30, when the government issued a license for the sale of Chelsea to an American-led group, it outlined its determination to “ensure that Roman Abramovich does not benefit from the sale of Chelsea Football Club in any way, and that the proceeds of such a sale are used for humanitarian purposes in Ukraine.”“Furthermore, the Treasury will only issue a license which ensures that such proceeds are used for exclusively humanitarian purposes in Ukraine. The United Kingdom will work closely with the Portuguese Government and the European Commission when considering an application for such a license and the destination of the proceeds.”That position undermines not only the spirit in which the charity was conceived, Penrose said, but also the law.“All it would take is a little bit of bravery and a position from the British government that we’re going to do the right thing and help all victims of the Ukraine war, knowing full well we can’t send it to Russians and Russia or anything that people might worry about,” he said.Publicly, the government has been mostly tight-lipped about the holdup. Pressed on the matter, James Cleverly, the British foreign secretary, said recently: “We want to make sure that the money that is released goes exclusively to the recipients it is aimed at. I need full reassurance that is the case.”At the time of the sale last year, some of the bidders, too, expressed concerns about a stipulation set by Abramovich that the funds go toward setting up the new foundation, which he pledged would be for “all victims” of the Ukraine war.During the months of back and forth, Penrose has communicated with civil servants and not Cleverly, or any other ministers, figures that would, he believes, hold the key to breaking the deadlock in a situation that appears to be as political as it is bureaucratic.“This is one thing that I’m a bit annoyed about,” he said. “We’ve asked for even a telephone call with the ministers in charge repeatedly. And they keep saying, ‘yes, yes, yes,’ and we never get it. And I don’t know if it is priorities or they are avoiding the issue.”A spokesman for the foreign office would only say that the funds remain frozen and a new license would need to be issued to release them to the foundation.It is not only Penrose and staff members linked to the foundation that have been pressing the British government. Potential recipients of the money have, too.“It’s ludicrous that Chelsea can be sold in a matter of weeks but when it comes to releasing desperately needed funds they get stuck in the weeds,” said James Denselow, head of conflict and humanitarian policy at Save the Children in Britain.He supported Penrose’s assessment over where and how the funds should be spent. “The consequences of war in Ukraine don’t stop on its borders,” Denselow said.The comments come during the same week in which London is hosting a high-level international conference to discuss Ukraine’s recovery that will be addressed by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak of Britain and will include the U.S. secretary of state, Antony J. Blinken. Penrose said the event could help bring renewed urgency to the release of the stalled foundation’s funds.Denselow warned of the risk that the funds could be subsumed by reconstruction costs rather than the humanitarian needs they were designed for.The global charity Oxfam has also pressed for the impasse to be broken. Pauline Chetcuti, head of policy at Oxfam Britain, suggested the most urgent need was in several African countries reeling from food shortages linked to the conflict in Ukraine.“I really do hope that there are no politics holding up the money voluntarily preventing families in South Sudan or Somalia from buying their next meal,” Chetcuti said. “It would be outrageous and scandalous.” More

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      Tension Overshadows the Tennis Between Sabalenka and Svitolina

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      Players from Ukraine do not shake hands with players from Russia and Belarus. Aryna Sabalenka waited at the net anyway.In hindsight, this French Open was probably destined to come down to a moment like the one that unfolded Tuesday.For 10 days in Paris, and for months on the women’s professional tennis tour, Ukrainian players have made it clear that they will not shake hands with players from Russia or Belarus after their matches. Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus, the second seed and one of the favorites to win the women’s singles championship, knows this as well as anyone. She beat Ukraine’s Marta Kostyuk last week in the first round and then watched Kostyuk gather her belongs and leave the court quickly under a chorus of boos.Regardless of the hostility from the crowd, there was zero chance that Elina Svitolina, the unofficial leader of the female players from Ukraine, would behave any differently when it was her turn to face Sabalenka on Tuesday. Sabalenka dispatched Svitolina, 6-4, 6-4, with one last bullying rally and a final blasted forehand.And so, Svitolina said, as she saw Sabalenka at the net, waiting — and waiting, and waiting — and staring at her when the match was over, one thought passed through her mind: “What are you doing?”Svitolina thought Sabalenka’s move was intentional. Sabalenka said it was just instinctive.Clive Brunskill/Getty ImagesDid Svitolina think Sabalenka was taking advantage of the moment, knowing that the crowd at Roland Garros had previously howled at players who forsook the postmatch handshake?“Yes, I think so, unfortunately,” Svitolina said during a news conference after the match.Sabalenka later denied that she had done anything of the sort.“It just was an instinct,” she said, because that is what she always does at the end of a match.That Sabalenka was saying anything at all was news in itself. After her third-round win on Friday, Sabalenka skipped the mandatory postmatch news conference, opting instead to do an interview only with a WTA employee. She did the same thing after her fourth-round win.The tennis has often been overshadowed by geopolitics at this French Open. Novak Djokovic, the 22-time Grand Slam champion and Serbia’s biggest celebrity, proclaimed his solidarity with ethnic Serbian protesters who clashed with NATO forces in Kosovo late last month over control of the region and the status of the country, which more than 100 nations have recognized but Serbia and Russia have not. Djokovic even scrawled on a plastic plate in front of a television camera that Kosovo was the heart of Serbia, a statement that supporters of Kosovo called fascist and supportive of a philosophy that had led to ethnic cleansing.For Sabalenka, talk of politics became unavoidable after she drew Kostyuk, the rising Ukrainian, in the first round, and a journalist from Ukraine asked about her previous statements that she would end the war if she could. The journalist also raised Sabalenka’s close association in the past with President Aleksandr G. Lukashenko of Belarus, who has allowed Russia to use his country as a staging area for its war in Ukraine. The internet has no shortage of photos and videos of Sabalenka with Lukashenko after he had arrested political opponents and used the military and the police to quash protests.After those news conferences, Sabalenka announced that she no longer felt “safe” facing the news media and opted to speak only with a WTA employee following her next two matches. The WTA and tournament organizers supported her decision, waiving the fines and threats of more serious penalties they had imposed on Naomi Osaka for doing the same thing at the French Open two years ago.“I felt really disrespected,” Sabalenka said Tuesday of those first two tense news conferences.While Sabalenka was struggling off the court, Svitolina was becoming the story of the tournament. She had spent most of the past year on maternity leave and raising money for relief efforts in Ukraine, and she thrilled crowds as she battled through her first four matches in her first Grand Slam following the birth of her daughter. The local fans have a special affinity for Svitolina, who is married to the French tennis player Gaël Monfils, who was courtside at all of her matches.Svitolina won her first four matches at the French Open, in her first Grand Slam since the birth of her daughter.Clive Brunskill/Getty ImagesHer victories set up the showdown with Sabalenka, which immediately felt like so much more than a match between two tennis players.This was Ukraine against Belarus, a well-loved player in the sport against a 25-year-old whom fans are still getting to know. One had become a leading figure in popular culture in war relief efforts; the other had not made it clear where her loyalties lied.Under pressure from the Ukrainian journalist, Sabalenka had said she did not support the war — “Nobody normal will ever support this war,” she said — but had not renounced her support of Lukashenko.Tennis-wise, it was a duel between a grinding retriever, Svitolina, and perhaps the women’s game’s biggest hitter, Sabalenka, and it quickly became clear that unless Sabalenka’s old erratic self emerged, this was not going to be Svitolina’s day. Sabalenka stayed steady, and Svitolina was out. Sabalenka will face Karolina Muchova of the Czech Republic in the semifinals Thursday.Then came the awkward standoff at the end, and even some boos for Svitolina’s actions as she packed her bag, with Sabalenka waiting at the net, and as she left the court.“She didn’t deserve all this,” Sabalenka said of the howls.“I don’t want to be involved in any politics,” Sabalenka said at a news conference after the match. “I just want to be a tennis player.”Lisi Niesner/ReutersSvitolina said everyone might be better off if the WTA and tournament organizers made it clear to players from Russia and Belarus that as long as there was war, there would not be any handshaking. She also said one player should not get the advantage of taking a pass on the potential stress of facing the news media while everyone else had to sit in front of microphone and respond to whatever questions arise.“I faced difficulties,” Svitolina said. “I’m not escaping. I have my strong position, and I’m vocal about that.” She said she would not try to curry favor with the public “by betraying my strong belief and strongest position for my country.”When it was Sabalenka’s turn, she once more stated her opposition to the war, and when pressed — by a journalist from Poland — she attempted to add slight distance between her and Lukashenko. The Ukrainian journalist who had questioned her previously is not covering the second week of the tournament.“I don’t support war, meaning I don’t support Lukashenko right now,” Sabalenka said.She spoke of losing sleep over her decision to skip the previous news conferences and said that she had felt bad about it and that she planned not to skip any more but did not regret the decision.“I don’t want to be involved in any politics,” she said. “I just want to be a tennis player.”For the time being, and with a possible finals date coming with Iga Swiatek of Poland, who wears a pin of Ukraine’s flag when she plays, that may not be possible. More

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      Sabalenka Skips French Open News Conference Citing Her Mental Health

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      The Belarusian player faced questions about the war earlier in the week from a Ukrainian reporter. On Friday, with the tournament’s blessing, she did not attend her post-match news conference.Aryna Sabalenka’s day began with a routine demolition of Kamilla Rakhimova of Russia that propelled the world’s second-ranked player, who is from Belarus, into the second week of the French Open as expected.But then Sabalenka put herself, the tournament and tennis once more at the center of the debate over sports and the war in Ukraine by refusing to attend the mandatory post-match news conference. She said she had felt unsafe during a previous news conference this week when a journalist from Ukraine asked Sabalenka about her support of President Alexandr G. Lukashenko of Belarus, which has supported Russia’s war against Ukraine.“On Wednesday I did not feel safe in press conference,” Sabalenka was quoted as saying at the beginning of a transcript of her statements following her 6-2, 6-2 win over Rakhimova. “I should be able to feel safe when I do interviews with the journalists after my matches. For my own mental health and well-being, I have decided to take myself out of this situation today, and the tournament has supported me in this decision.”Cédric Laurent, a spokesman for the French tennis federation, the F.F.T., which organizes this Grand Slam tournament, one that has been dominated by geopolitics from the start, said federation officials learned after Sabalenka’s match that she would not participate in the news conference.French Open officials approved Sabalenka’s decision for Friday’s match but said no decision had yet been made about her news conferences during the rest of the tournament.Laurent said a “pool” had been selected to interview Sabalenka, but he declined to specify who was in the pool or if they were members of the independent news media or worked for the tournament or the women’s tennis tour, the WTA.A person with knowledge of the situation who was not authorized to speak on the matter said that only one person — a WTA employee — asked questions in the pool interview.A person familiar with the WTA’s actions who was also not authorized to speak on the matter said the organization supported Sabalenka’s desire not to participate in the news conference and the manner in which her statements were delivered.Sabalenka’s representatives at IMG, the sports and entertainment firm that is a unit of Endeavor, did not respond to requests for comment.The decision on Sabalenka comes two years after a confrontation with Naomi Osaka over attendance at news conferences led her to drop out of the French Open. Osaka announced on social media before the start of the tournament that she would not participate in the news conferences in order to protect her mental health and would pay whatever fines she received.After Osaka skipped the news conference following her opening-round win, she was fined $15,000 by the tournament referee, and the leaders of the four Grand Slam competitions — the Australian, French and U.S. Opens, and Wimbledon — threatened that she could be expelled from the French Open and face harsher penalties if she would not fulfill her media obligations.Osaka, a four-time Grand Slam champion and one of the world’s top-ranked players at the time, pulled out the next day, announcing for the first time that she had been battling depression and planned to take a break from tennis. She returned seven weeks later, but stepped away once more in the fall of 2021. She battled injuries for much of 2022, and is now pregnant with her first child, though she has said she intends to return after the birth.In Sabalenka’s case, the decision came following two tense exchanges with Daria Meshcheriakova, a part-time journalist from Ukraine who works for Tribuna, a sports publication based in the country.During the first exchange Meshcheriakova asked Sabalenka what her message to the world was about the war and why she had claimed that Ukrainian players “hate” her. Sabalenka denied having said that and then spoke as openly as she ever had regarding the war.“Nobody in this world, Russian athletes or Belarusian athletes, support the war. Nobody,” said Sabalenka, who lives in Miami. “How can we support the war? Nobody, normal people will never support it.”Three days later, after Sabalenka’s second-round match, Meshcheriakova challenged her about a letter she supposedly signed in 2020 in support of Lukashenko, “in times when he was torturing and beating up protesters in the street,” and about having participated in a New Year’s celebration with him.The letter that Sabalenka supposedly signed has not been made public, and her New Year’s celebration with the Belarusian president has not been independently verified, though there are many pictures of Sabalenka and Lukashenko together. In an interview Friday, Meshcheriakova, who left Kyiv for the Netherlands 10 days after the war began when missiles landed close to her apartment and whose parents still live in Russia-occupied Luhansk, said she had learned of the letter and the New Year’s celebration from prominent Belarusian journalists who had been forced to leave the country.“It’s true,” Meshcheriakova said, “and you saw how she responded.”Sabalenka said she had no comments about either question, then began to answer Meshcheriakova’s next question: “So you basically support everything because you cannot speak up? You’re not a small person, Aryna.”But Sabalenka quickly cut herself off when a moderator stated that Sabalenka had made it clear she would not comment further.“It’s all clear to us,” Meshcheriakova said to conclude the exchange.Sabalenka is scheduled to play Sloane Stephens on Sunday in the fourth round. Teresa Suarez/EPA, via ShutterstockElina Svitolina, who is a kind of unofficial leader of the Ukrainian members of the tour, said they simply wanted to hear from players representing Russia and Belarus that they believe their countries should end the war.“I think pretty much all Ukrainians would love to hear that from their side,” Svitolina said after her three-set win over Anna Blinkova of Russia.Like the other Ukrainian players, Svitolina did not shake Blinkova’s hand after the match.“Can you imagine the guy or a girl who is right now in a front line, you know, looking at me and I’m, like, acting like nothing is happening,” Svitolina said. “I’m representing my country. I have a voice.”Sabalenka is scheduled to play Sloane Stephens of the United States on Sunday in the fourth round. It’s not yet clear whether she will face reporters after the match.Meshcheriakova, who works as a political analyst in addition to covering sports, said she was returning to her day job after Saturday. She said she had been using vacation time to report on the tournament and was paying her own expenses.In Osaka’s case, tournament officials said that not requiring Osaka to attend news conferences could give her an unfair advantage over other players.Stephens, who is a member of the WTA Players’ Council, said Friday that she supported Sabalenka’s decision not to attend her news conference, and that every player had a right to feel safe performing her media obligations.“Everyone needs to feel good about themselves and what they’re doing,” Stephens said. “If she doesn’t feel safe, then she doesn’t need to be there. That’s the end of that.”Meshcheriakova said she had spoken with her parents earlier in the day. Her mother, she said, had been watching the Russian media coverage of the story, in which she was described using the Russian words for a Black cross-dresser. She implored her daughter to stop covering the tournament and to leave immediately.“Of course I told her I wouldn’t,” Meshcheriakova said. “I’m a journalist.” More

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      When Your Champions League Dream Runs Through a War Zone

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      Shakhtar Donetsk’s foreign stars fled Ukraine when Russia invaded. Now some are returning or signing up, proof that the lure of opportunity can trump fear.By the time Lassina Traoré returned to his team, everybody else was gone.In 2021, Traoré, a forward from Burkina Faso, had joined the other expensive foreign recruits lured to Ukraine by the country’s perennial soccer champion, Shakhtar Donetsk. Back then, Traoré played in a team built around a Brazilian core, supplemented by other foreign talent and some of Ukrainian soccer’s best players, for a club that was regarded as arguably the top team in Eastern Europe. Then the Russian bombs began to fall, and everything changed.When Shakhtar returned to practice after a monthslong hiatus abroad, the cosmopolitan air of the club had vanished. A roster that had been dotted with almost a dozen Brazilians just over a year ago now contains only one. Clubs elsewhere in Europe, shopping for bargains amid broken contracts, skimmed off other talent. Even Roberto de Zerbi, Shakhtar’s highly rated Italian coach, had moved on.Traoré, like all the others, could have gone, too. FIFA, soccer’s governing body, issued an edict shortly after the start of the war that allowed foreigners, whatever their contractual status, to unilaterally quit Ukrainian teams and sign elsewhere.Traoré was vacationing in Barcelona on the day Russia invaded Ukraine. He could only follow from afar as Shakhtar’s foreign stars — crammed in a hotel conference room with their families — pleaded for help as war planes circled the skies above Kyiv. Within a few days, they had left the country. Those who escaped did not return.Traoré returned to Amsterdam, where he had previously played for the Dutch club Ajax, to wait out the early months of the war. While the rest of Shakhtar’s armada of foreign talent found new clubs — some back home in Brazil, others in Europe — Traoré took his time. Slowly, the thought of returning to Shakhtar started to look like not only a viable option but the right thing to do.“I had many options,” he said after a recent practice in Kyiv, where the team has been based for the last few weeks. “The club knows. I know. And we discussed it. But I decided to stay.”For him, he said, “it’s in my culture that when they give you something, you have to give something back. For me, it was time to give back the love they gave me before.”Traoré said that he understood why many of his teammates decided not to return. He admitted that he had some difficult conversations with his wife and parents before agreeing to do so. (His wife is now living with his parents at their home in Paris.)For most of the season the team lived in a hotel complex in the western city of Lviv, but it has recently moved to Kyiv, closer to its training ground. A return to Donetsk, in the east, is out of the question; Russian forces have controlled the city since last year, joining separatists that forced Shakhtar into exile as long ago as 2014.The club Traoré has rejoined is a shadow of the powerhouse it once was. The squad and its finances have been gutted; Shakhtar estimates that it has lost at least $40 million worth of talent for nothing as a result of FIFA’s decision to let players walk away from their contracts.Shakhtar and rivals like Dynamo Kyiv play their league matches in empty stadiums. Shakhtar remains on course for a return to the Champions League next season.Valentyn Ogirenko/Reuters“We have no money,” the club’s chief executive, Sergei Palkin, said on a recent visit to London. The Ukrainian league’s return, as much a symbol of the country’s resolve as a sporting competition, is played out in front of empty stands and to the sound of occasional air raid sirens forcing players from the field. The league’s television contract has collapsed. Sponsors have all but disappeared.“We have no income from Ukraine,” Palkin said. “Zero.”What money there is has come from Shakhtar’s presence in the Champions League and the Europa League, European soccer’s second-tier competition, and from the record transfer fee the club received by selling its star Ukrainian forward Mykhailo Mudruyk to Chelsea in England.New money cannot come soon enough. While FIFA allowed foreign players to leave Shakhtar without a fee, it insisted the club pay any debts to the clubs it signed those foreign players from, including a handful that did not play a single minute for the club because of the war, according to Palkin.Traoré’s decision to return, then, came as a pleasant surprise. He had cost the club $10 million in a transfer fee when he joined from Ajax in 2021. A forward who was not considered a mainstay before the war, he is suddenly a pivotal figure, and not just for what he is doing on the field.His continued presence, Traoré and the club hope, is a sign to potential recruits that soccer in Ukraine remains a viable career option. It is an option that proved alluring to players with European dreams like Kevin Kelsy, an 18-year-old striker from Venezuela.The 18-year-old Venezuelan striker Kevin Kelsy said his family was worried about his move to Shakhtar. “When I told them, they asked, ‘Why Ukraine?’” Yoan Valat/EPA, via ShutterstockNot so long ago Kelsy would not have been a target for Shakhtar, which for years used the wealth of its oligarch owner to shop at a higher price bracket. But now, in its more straitened state, Shakhtar has turned to eager young players like Kelsy and recruits from Georgia and Tajikistan.Kelsy said signing a five-year contract with a club in a country at war was a surprisingly easy decision. The prospect of fulfilling a dream of making it to Europe trumped everything else, he said — even the persistent threat from Russian missiles and planes, the regular drone of air raid sirens and the rumble of distant explosions. His family, though, had questions.“When I told them, they asked, ‘Why Ukraine?’” he said in an interview in Spanish. “They knew everything that happened, and there was a little bit of nervousness and a little of fear. But I spoke to them about this theme, that it’s very important for me to go to play football in Europe, in a big team like Shakhtar, and in the end they understood.”Kelsy, like the scores of South Americans who have signed for Ukrainian clubs in the past, views the club as a steppingstone on a journey that he hopes might one day propel him to the club of his dreams, A.C. Milan. Games in elite competitions like the Champions League, he knows, offer an elite stage to show he belongs. (Shakhtar, which led the Ukrainian league entering the weekend, is on track to return to the competition next season.)Having lost so many players, Palkin, the Shakhtar chief executive, now insists that any new recruits sign contracts that include clauses that would prevent them from taking advantage of any FIFA regulations that would allow them to suddenly leave. Any player who signs on now, he said, surely understands the commitment they are making.So strong is the pull of making it as a professional in Europe, though, that Kelsy said not even war could stop him from coming. “I try not to think about it,” he said, “and focus on what matters now.”As a new recruit, Kelsy knows no other reality as a Shakhtar player. That is not the case for Traoré, who recalls far more luxurious times. In those days, jet travel and big crowds were the norm, not the long, arduous bus journeys that are now required to fulfill fixtures in empty stadiums.“It’s not normal life like we used to have: no home, you can’t see family, and also you have to always be careful, sirens on all the time,” he said. “But you get used to it.” More