PALKIN: “Shakhtar focuses on Ecuador, Georgia and Brazil in transfers”

Shakhtar General Manager Sergei Palkin told how the transfer vector of the Donetsk club has changed due to the large-scale phase of the Russian-Ukrainian war.

“We used to focus on the Brazilian market. Now we are increasing the radius of attracting talent to Ecuador, Georgia… and continuing to look for them in Brazil. After the war [начала полномасштабной ее фазы] We hired three Brazilians. The truth is that sometimes it can be difficult to find the right players in the Brazilian market and prices rise rapidly. We have seen 15-year-olds transfer to Real Madrid for 50 million euros. It destroyed the market.”

“How can we manage to sign contracts with foreigners in the middle of war? It was very difficult at first. Fortunately, the situation has now returned to normal as we did not experience any incidents and no player wanted to terminate their contract. They see that we have 7-8 foreign players playing in the Champions League… We are a club at the Champions League level for players like Eguinaldo, and the Champions League is the biggest showcase of the football world. said Palkin.

This summer, Shakhtar added Brazilians Neverton and Eguinaldo, Georgian Azarov, Ecuadorian Castillo and Israeli Lemkin to its squad.