Sport allows Ukrainian war wounded to “feel alive”, judges national football legend Andriy Shevchenko, interviewed by AFP on the sidelines of Euro-2024 football for amputees, which takes place in Evian, France .
“It is thanks to veterans that we are all alive today and have the opportunity to continue developing Ukrainian football,” says Shevchenko, 2004 Ballon d’Or winner and head of the Football Federation of Ukraine (UFA). Also, one of its “strategic objectives” is to help them “return an active life thanks to football”.
While Ukraine has been at war since the Russian offensive against its territory in February 2022, “sport is a powerful instrument of physical and psychological recovery” for its fighters returning from the front. It “allows them to feel alive even in difficult times”, underlines the former Dynamo kyiv, AC Milan and Chelsea striker, himself the son of a soldier.
According to the former world football star, there are currently around “70,000 amputees” in Ukraine, the majority “veterans”.
“We are developing a roadmap for the next five years to develop amputee football across the country,” he says.
” Heroes “
To date, there are two club teams for amputees in kyiv – including Shakhtar Donetsk, based in the capital – as well as a third in Lviv (west) and a final one in Cherkasy (north).
At the national level, Ukraine, which has “four to five veterans in its ranks”, is currently participating in the Euro in Evian, France, the host country against which it opened with a narrow 1-0 defeat.
In the nine-day tournament, teams consist of six outfield players and a goalkeeper, and each match lasts fifty minutes.
According to coach Dmytro Rzhondovskyi, Ukraine is in a difficult group, but the group’s former soldiers “are a great source of inspiration for the civilian amputees in the team”, he told AFP .
According to him, the selection was also boosted by the recent performance of a renowned Ukrainian athlete, boxer Oleksandr Usyk, winner two weeks ago of Tyson Fury, in a fight for the world heavyweight title.
“He is the spirit of Ukraine, our power and we are so proud of Oleksandr,” says Rzhondovskyi, noting that in his youth he used to play football with Usyk.
Dmytro Rzhondovskyi himself knows how to go about winning a title: the former Dynamo kyiv academy player won the “Mundiavocat”, the World Cup of Lawyers, in Barcelona in 2018, scoring in the semi-finals. final and final.
Aged 35, son of a Ukrainian soldier, he explains that he did not fight in the war but that this is his way of contributing to the country’s efforts.
“They are heroes. I am not a soldier but, for me, I am a Ukrainian who helps soldiers, men and women, readjust to life after their traumas,” adds the man who, with a friend who owns a pub, prepared meal for soldiers at the start of the conflict.
After this competition with the men’s team, he will also coach the women’s amputee team during the World Cup in Baranquilla, Colombia, from November 2 to 11.