UEFA delayed payments to Odesa football clubs for two seasons

The directors of five Ukrainian clubs have written a letter to UEFA President, Slovenian lawyer Aleksander Čeferin, complaining about an emergency situation in which they have been delayed in receiving solidarity payments for the 2023-24 and 2024-25 seasons.

Among the affected teams are Chornomorets and Real Pharma from Odesa, Metallurg from Zaporizhzhia, Phoenix Mariupol FC from the occupied southern port city, and Metalist 1925 FC from Kharkiv, The Guardian reported.

"As a result of our communication with both the national association and UEFA officials, we have been informed that the obstacle to the above payments is some completely unclear requirements of a bank in Switzerland, which allegedly relate to the geographical location of football clubs in the 'war zone'. We have not received any further details or any legal justification for these payment restrictions. The wording used in relation to the "war zone" is completely unclear to us and does not correspond to reality. The war zone, or rather the zone of Russia's military aggression, is not a specific region of our country, but the whole of Ukraine. The port city of Mariupol and part of Zaporizhzhia region in southeastern Ukraine are occupied, but this does not apply to Odesa in the south or Kharkiv in the northeast," the club directors said.

Instead, UEFA has paid more than 10.8 million euros (£9.4 million) in solidarity funds to Russian football clubs after they were banned from European tournaments following the Kremlin's invasion of Ukraine.

Solidarity payments are typically given to clubs that have not performed well enough domestically to qualify for European competition. According to UEFA, they are intended to maintain a competitive balance in Europe's top divisions, taking into account the additional revenue that some clubs receive through participation in European competitions.

Кирило Бойко