Double Standards? UEFA Pays Russia €10.8M, Snubs Ukrainian Clubs

After the invasion of Ukraine, Russian football clubs received €10.8 million in solidarity aid from UEFA, while five Ukrainian clubs were denied similar payments due to their location in the war zone, The Gaze reports, citing Bloomberg.

UEFA solidarity payments are usually given to football clubs that have not qualified for European tournaments. These funds are intended to ensure financial balance in European championships by compensating for the lack of income from participation in European competitions.

Despite the ban on Russian clubs and the national team participating in international competitions after the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, UEFA continued to transfer solidarity payments to the Russian Football Union. In particular, Russia received €3.3 million in the 2022–2023 season, €3.38 million in 2023–2024, and €4.22 million in 2024–2025. Earlier, in the 2021–2022 season, the association had already received more than €6.2 million.

This money is officially supposed to be distributed among clubs, but its continuation even after the start of the war has drawn sharp criticism, especially given that Ukrainian clubs located in the combat zone were deprived of similar support.

The affected teams are Chornomorets and Real Pharma, based in Odesa; IFC Metalurg from Zaporizhzhia; FSC Phoenix Mariupol from the occupied southern port city; and FC Metalist 1925 from Kharkiv.

The heads of Ukrainian clubs stated that they had not received solidarity payments due to alleged requirements from a Swiss bank related to the clubs' location in a “war zone.” They emphasized that they had not received any legal justification or specific explanation for these restrictions, and considered the wording to be unclear and untrue.

“The zone of military operations, or rather the zone of military aggression of Russia, is not a specific region of our country, but the whole of Ukraine,” the clubs` directors wrote.

Despite the occupation of Mariupol and part of the Zaporizhzhia region, many Ukrainian cities, including Odesa and Kharkiv, continue to function, although they are under threat. 

The authors of the appeal emphasize that in the context of war, any additional financial support from UEFA is critically important, as clubs have lost their sources of income due to the hostilities.

The revelations about payments to Russian clubs once again raise questions about UEFA's lenient attitude towards Russia. Despite the war, the Russian Football Union has not been disqualified and retains its membership in the organization.

Uefa includes individuals close to the Kremlin — in particular, Polina Yumasheva, the daughter of Putin's former adviser and ex-wife of oligarch Oleg Deripaska, who sits on the management and compliance committee.

Against this backdrop, UEFA has been criticized for fining Ukraine's national team coach, Oleksandr Petrakov, for his patriotic stance, as well as for attempting to bring Russia back into international football in 2023, which was only canceled after protests from a number of European federations.

The Ukrainian Football Association also pointed out that even under disqualification, Russian clubs continue to receive ranking points, which affects the future participation of teams in European competitions.

As The Gaze informed earlier, two Ukrainian national team players — Anatoliy Trubin and Andriy Lunin — are ranked among the world’s ten most expensive goalkeepers, according to the CIES report.