Sergey PALKIN: “Ukraine should be at the 2022 World Cup. Iran has no place there!”

CEO of Shakhtar Donetsk Sergey Palkin He said that the participation of the Iranian national football team in the 2022 World Cup in Qatar should be suspended and replaced by the Ukrainian national team:

“While the Iranian leadership is having fun watching their national team play in the World Cup, Ukrainians will be killed by Iranian drones and Iranian missiles.

About 250 such drones attacked the peaceful cities of Ukraine. Each of them was produced by Iranian authorities, Iranian trainers and the military, directly trained and supervised the launch of drones that destroyed homes, museums, universities, offices, sports and playgrounds, and most importantly killed Ukrainians. Among them are children. Kids who also dream of seeing their team at the World Cup.

Shakhtar calls on FIFA and the entire international community to ensure that the Iranian national team’s participation in the World Cup is immediately banned for this country’s direct involvement in terrorist attacks against Ukrainians. It will be a just decision that should draw the world’s attention to a regime that both kills its best people and helps kill Ukrainians. The vacant place should be occupied by the Ukrainian team, which has proven itself to be worthy of participation in the World Cup. Having unequal conditions with other teams in the play-offs, the player played with his heart.

This decision is historically and sportingly justified. I urge everyone to join the crackdown on the football bureaucracy. It is enough to repeat the mistakes of the 2018 World Cup in Russia, hiding behind an empty thesis about the irrelevance of sports.

Facilitating terrorists’ participation in the World Cup is politics. “It’s time to put an end to such a policy,” Palkin said.