FC Shakhtar CEO Serhii Palkin: Support of the aggressor country by Barcelona players is unacceptable

FC Shakhtar became aware of a video recorded by FC Barcelona players and posted on the Telegram Channel of La Liga’s official broadcaster with words of gratitude to Russian fans for their support during the season.

Below is a statement from FC Shakhtar CEO Serhii Palkin:

“Ukrainian football club Shakhtar expresses its outrage concerning the posted video message from Barcelona players Alejandro Balde and Sergi Roberto with words of gratitude to football fans from Russia.

It is a second year of a bloody and unjustifiable military invasion by the Russian Federation on the territory of Ukraine. Thousands of Ukrainians became victims of this war, dozens of cities were destroyed, millions of people lost their homes and became refugees. The whole world united to support Ukraine and Ukrainian people and condemned the invasion. Every day we do everything to hasten the victory of Ukraine and to protect the European values of freedom and democracy. The people of Poland provide special assistance to Ukraine: in particular, captain of Poland national team and Barcelona forward Robert Lewandowski has repeatedly demonstrated his solidarity with Ukrainians.

And then we see the players of one of the world’s top clubs, Barcelona, address the Russians, expressing their gratitude and support to them. We consider this an intolerable and simply immoral act. We must remember that no victory on the football field is worth the life of a child, no money earned in the football market is worth the destroyed cities and the wrecked lives of people.

We hope that FC Barcelona is aware that their support of a country such as Russia at this time is completely unacceptable. We expect the club to admit its mistake and avoid similar situations in the future.”