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What has been striking about the response of football to the crisis in Crimea is the unanimity of anti-Putin feeling as rival fans arrange fixtures amid the postponement of the league
Two weeks ago, the Ukrainian league should have restarted with Shakhtar Donetsk's trip to the capital to face Dynamo Kyiv. For obvious reasons, the programme that weekend and the following one was postponed, but the ultras of the two clubs met anyway. Given they are the bitterest of rivals, that would normally be cause for concern, but on this occasion all that happened was a football match.
Other rival groups have arranged similar fixtures ? Dnipro against Metalist, Chornomorets against Karpaty ? with the aim of expressing solidarity. Even the ultra groups representing the two biggest teams in Crimea, Tavriya Simferopol and Sevastopol, have taken a pro-Ukrainian stance in the current crisis. The most important thing, many have insisted, is Ukraine's independence and sovereignty, not footballing concerns.
Ultra groups were heavily involved in the demonstrations on Independence Square and subsequent protests against the then-president Viktor Yanukovych in other cities, and were explicitly thanked for their dedication by Oleh Tyahnybok, the head of the nationalist Svoboda party. This reflects a recurring theme of major street demonstrations in eastern Europe over the past couple of decades: the ultra groups are largely made up of young, fit men who are organised and practised in fighting with and evading police ? they are useful people to have on your side.
There had been suggestions then that the ultras were acting more out of antipathy of the titushky, the government-sponsored thugs used to try to put down the demonstrations, than in support of any political stance, but many groups have now made their stance clear. "Everyone can see what is happening in Crimea, which is occupied by foreign invaders," said a joint statement from ultras of Dnipro and Sevastopol.
"On the pretext of protecting the Russian-speaking population from the oppression by mythical western radicals, who exist only on TV programmes and articles in the Russian media, we have seen the start of a real repression and oppression of our fellow citizens who protest against bringing troops to the peninsula and who stand for resolving issues of conflict diplomatic grounds. Our task is to demonstrate that Ukraine is united and indivisible and that we don't need such 'protectors'."
After the involvement of Tavriya ultras on Independence Square, leaflets were distributed to militia in Simferopol bearing the photographs and details of leaders of the ultras. The harassment that followed seems to have prevented much in the way of direct involvement in Crimea by ultras but, as Manuel Veth shows in this detailed piece , social media gives a fairly clear indication of what many think. While there is strong support for the coalition government in Kyiv and against annexation, though, there is also a current of far-right thought spouting the usual slogans about the brotherhood of white Slavs and expressing hostility to Tatars who, according to the 2001 census, make up around 12% of the population of Crimea.
What has been striking about the response of football, is the unanimity of anti-Putin feeling. Ihor Kolomoyskyi, the controversial co-founder and chairman of Privatbank, sponsors of Dynamo Kyiv, and the president of Dnipro, for instance, has been outspoken in his opposition to Putin. "I don't understand how Ukrainians and Russians can go to war," he said. "We had one big schizophrenic [Yanukovych] and now there is a schizophrenic shorty [Putin]. He is completely inadequate, totally crazy. His messiahship, the restoration of the Russian Empire of 1913 or the Soviet Union of 1991 could bring the world to a catastrophe."
Kolomoyskyi is, depending which study you believe, either Ukraine's second or third richest man, and is a key ally of Yulia Tymoschenko. The richest is Shakhtar's owner, Rinat Akhmetov, a political opponent who was a friend of Yanukovych for over 20 years before, he says, urging him to resign in February. Akhmetov has also spoken ? albeit in less inflammatory terms ? of his opposition to the annexation. "Our country's future is in jeopardy," he said in a statement on the club website. "Internal political tensions could escalate into a protracted conflict and destroy the integrity of Ukraine. External use of force and illegal actions is unacceptable."
The main Ukrainian football website has removed its section covering
the Russian league as a gesture of protest. Yet it is telling too that when the league resumed, only 11,000 turned out for Tavriya's game away to Dynamo (which had been shifted from Simferopol for safety reasons), the lowest crowd at the Olimpiyskyi since it was redeveloped for the Euros. Whether that is for fear of violence among large crowds or because football doesn't seem that important any more is hard to say. "It's a strange situation," said the Dynamo goalkeeper Oleksandr Shovkovskiy. "In my opinion, Russia's actions lack any logic. Imagine a situation: a family lives in a three-room apartment. A wife and a husband have had a row. Here comes the neighbour and says: 'Your behaviour is inappropriate, you're infringing on your husband's interests, so I'll take one room away from you.' I can't understand it. I don't agree with it, to put it mildly."
Those who were there were joined by players and club officials in singing the Ukrainian national anthem. "We live in this country and we are all patriots," said the Dynamo president Igor Surkis. "We must think about the development of the country and football. It's not really important who's won the game. First of all it's significant that matches take place without problems. It's necessary to take people from streets to stadiums again ? People [have] missed football. We must unite the nation with a help of football, ballet, concerts etc. We are sole and inseparable. I think football can unify people."
Shakhtar's coach, Mircea Lucescu, has taken up a similar theme, while dismissing rumours he would quit the club to return to Romania. "There's no need to leave the country at the moment," he said. "Why? It would be a signal of our weakness. But we are not weak."
Never a man to dismiss the possibility of conspiracy, he is convinced the exit of all four Ukrainian clubs at the last-32 stage of the Europe League is no coincidence. "We have seen the refereeing," he said. "The fact is that no one wants to come to Ukraine now. Therefore, we should let the world feel that they can come here from any region and any country. Life in Ukraine continues."
But not as before. Ukrainian football is already feeling the effects of the past few months of instability. Metalist were league leaders at the beginning of November, but their owner Serhiy Kurchenko is an associate of Yanukovych and began to withdraw funding in the autumn. Myron Markevych resigned as coach saying he hadn't been paid in three months, there was no clear transfer policy over the winter break and the Argentinian forward Alejandro G?mez has said he is too frightened to return to the club. They haven't won any of their last four games and it is widely expected that their former president Oleksandr Yaroslavsky will soon take charge again.
Chornomorets, from Odessa, face even more serious issues with a real possibility the club will go out of business in the summer. Five key foreign players have been released from their contracts over the winter, the club say because it would be unfair to expect them to play on in such difficult conditions, although it is probably also significant that the Chornomorets president, Leonid Klimov, is a member of the Party of the Regions, which supported Yanukovych until dissociating itself with his "criminal orders" and "cowardice" at the end of February. Arsenal Kyiv had already withdrawn from the league after going bankrupt in November.
Shakhtar, who won 3-0 at Metalurh Zaporizhzhya, are five points clear of Dynamo and will probably go on to win the title for the fifth successive season. In that sense everything goes on as normal. But only in that sense.
Jonathan Wilson
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