Shakhtar Donetsk CEO Serhii Palkin has issued a blistering condemnation of FIFA President Gianni Infantino, calling the prospect of Russia’s return to football a “moral failure” and “complicity” in war crimes.
Serhii Palkin, the CEO of FC Shakhtar Donetsk, has launched a scathing critique of FIFA President Gianni Infantino following suggestions that Russian teams could soon return to international competition.
Palkin described the current stance as a “complete detachment from reality,” arguing that such a move would ignore the ongoing devastation of a four-year full-scale war.
Palkin highlighted the human cost of the conflict, citing the deaths of hundreds of thousands and the destruction of critical infrastructure.
He questioned the timing and motivation behind the President’s shift in tone, asking, “Why, after four years of war, has [Infantino] not once come to Ukraine to see with his own eyes what is happening here?”
In a poignant challenge, Palkin invited Infantino to witness the reality of Ukrainian football under fire. He urged the FIFA chief to attend Shakhtar’s first match in February and speak with players like Dmytro Riznyk and Denys Tvardovskyi, both of whom lost family members in the fighting.
“Let him come and see how people live… how children play football under air-raid sirens, next to bomb shelters, under the constant threat of missiles and drones.”
Palkin rejected the notion that reintegrating Russia is a diplomatic bridge. “A statement about the return of Russian football is not a ‘step towards peace,'” he insisted.
The Moral Weight of the Game
“It is a continuation of this horror. It is an attempt to pretend that war and aggression do not exist.”
The CEO concluded by framing the decision as more than just a sporting matter. He warned that supporting Russia’s return would be a “political and moral” choice with grave consequences.
Palkin asserted that football has no right to “turn a blind eye to evil” and that Infantino must take responsibility for any move that helps silence the narrative of war crimes.
“Football cannot exist outside reality,” Palkin stated, reminding the global community that just yesterday, sixteen Ukrainian miners—many of them Shakhtar supporters—were killed in a drone strike. For the club, this is not a debate about policy, but a matter of human survival.