It’s easy to forget that in June, the Ukrainian Football Federation was ordered to remove the words “Glory to the heroes” from its European champion jersey after Russia – yes, this Russia – complained that it found the slogan disturbingly aggressive and militaristic.
Eight months after, the same Russia, probably still turning its nose away from everything militaristic, would invade the eastern border of Ukraine and start a war in which at least 11,000 Ukrainian civilians and tens of thousands of its own soldiers were killed. They at least changed the slogan, so here we go.
Three years after, Uefa remains committed to the oxymoric impossibility of keeping politics out of football, even if the European Championship this summer seems ready to host another inevitably differentiated sporting and geopolitical event.
Since last weekend we have another twist. Again it is Ukraine, and again it is a sports matter that shows us what is already there; war minus the strikes, but also, as it must be said, right next to the strikes.
By and large, a meeting of Group E in the middle of Ukraine and Slovakia at the Merkur Spiel-area in Düsseldorf on the 21st sees none of the teams should reach the knockout stage. This is not a remarkable sporting rivalry. The two countries have historically maintained good relations until the first fraternal reaction of Slovakia to the invasion of Russia, during which its military air force was immediately provided to Kiev.
That has now changed. The victory of Peter Pellegrini in the second round of the Slovak presidential election last Saturday follows the more significant triumph of the coalition of Prime Minister Robert Fico in the parliamentary elections last year. Fico and Pelligrini are allies. Both are against military aid to Ukraine and are regularly called pro-Moscow.
On a visit to Düsseldorf in June, Ukraine will play football against a Vladimir Putin-friendly nation for the first time since the large-scale invasion, led by a prime minister who in the past blamed “Ukrainian Nazis and fascists finishing Russian civilians” for the war.
The official motto of Uefa for the upcoming summer jamboree for business and sports will be united by football. United in the heart of Europe(nothing says that the feuds of the night marketing committee feel like a complete stop in the middle of their one-size-fits-all slogan). Good luck with this guy. Perhaps, if we all could not mention the Nazis and fascists a little.
There is an obvious point of tension here. For Ukraine, the euro is a natural platform to demonstrate both its distrust of the war and its European identity, the dynamics of the Uefa-as-football-EU.
“Our mission is to show that we are all alive and actioning against the Russians and need the support of Europe,” Serhiy Rebrov told TV cameras before the playoff final against Iceland. Then the chant” Z-s-U ” could be heard at the stadium, an acronym of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. “When the enemy tries to damage us, we show every day that Ukrainians are and will be. Glory of Ukraine!”The x-account of Volodymyr Zelenskiy was published after the game. Obviously, it’s not just football.