Global Tour for Peace
The "Global Tour for Peace" was a European tour of international club friendlies organised by two Ukrainian football clubs whose football league had to cease due to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. The aim of the tour was to raise funds to provide aid for people in Ukraine affected by the Russian invasion. The Ukrainian teams involved with the tour were Dynamo Kyiv and Shakhtar Donetsk, the two most successful teams coming out the Ukrainian Premier League, as well as the Ukraine national football team who played friendlies in preparation for their World Cup qualification games in June 2022.
The tour can be split into two phases. The first phase was a reaction to the Russian invasion, raising money for refugees, and the need to keep the Ukraine national team players match fit for the 2022 World Cup qualifiers. The second phase is of friendlies being used to raise money while the teams are preparing for the resumption of the Ukrainian Premier League.
The Dynamo Kyiv tour played with the name "Tour for Peace in Ukraine", with each match playing under one of the following titles, "Match for Peace! Stop the War!" and "Hand in Hand for Peace", while the Shakhtar Donetsk tour was played under the name "Shakhtar Global Tour for Peace".
In total 32 games were played during the tour against 30 clubs. Clubs from 16 countries on two continents took part in the tour, with over 250,000 fans attending the games, and over €1 million raised in confirmed donations, with the total possibly being much higher due to 15 clubs yet to release the figures of their own fundraisers. Over 100 goals were scored during the friendlies. These 104 goals came from 72 players, who were from 26 countries on four continents. The tour saw fans from many nationalities coming together to show support for Ukraine in the wake of the invasion, and showing condemnation for Russia's actions.
Organisation of the tour
On 24 February 2022 Russian forces invaded Ukraine resulting in all sporting events in Ukraine being stopped. In the initial days of the war players and staff members of Dynamo Kyiv helped people from the capital to flee the city and country, while also helping those who stayed in Kyiv. Dynamo Kyiv suggested to Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, that the clubs personnel could leave Ukraine and go on a tour around Europe spreading Ukraine's message of peace. Zelenskyy agreed to the tour, and the club left Ukraine and based themselves in the Romanian capital, Bucharest.After Dynamo's plans for a tour were accepted Shakhtar Donetsk, who had been displaced from their home city since 2014 due to the war in Donbas, formally applied to Zelenskyy too to start their own tour and the right to leave the country during the war. Shakhtar based themselves in Riva, Istanbul, Turkey.
The main objective of the tour was to help raise money for the humanitarian crisis caused by the Russian invasion and to support Ukrainians who have been displaced by the war. A secondary objective of the tour was also helping the Ukraine national team players prepare for their World Cup qualifying games against Scotland, and potentially Wales, as after their domestic league was cancelled as a result of the invasion it denied half of the international players the chance to stay match fit.
The tour was fully supported by UEFA, the Ukrainian Ministry of Youth and Sports, Ministry of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine, Ministry of Social Policy of Ukraine, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine.
Dynamo and Shakhtar
Dynamo and Shakhtar are Ukraine's most successful and most supported clubs in the country. Since Ukraine's independence in 1991, Dynamo and Shakhtar have won a combined total of 29 Ukrainian Premier League titles out of 30, with Tavriya Simferopol being the only other club to win a Ukrainian title, coming in 1992, the first season in an independent Ukraine. The two clubs have also dominated the Ukrainian Cup, winning the competition a combined 26 times out of 30 and both teams having a perfect record in the Ukrainian Super Cup, winning the competition a combined 18 times out of 18.Due to the two teams' dominance in their domestic competitions, Dynamo Kyiv and Shakhtar Donetsk are the most recognisable clubs to play in Ukraine, with both clubs regularly competing in European competitions. Both teams often have the core of players who are called up to represent the Ukraine national team.
For the tour, Dynamo chose to hold their series of games under the name "Tour for Peace in Ukraine". The club further played each game with one of two mottos, "Match for Peace! Stop the War!", which was the most commonly used motto for the games and "Hand in Hand for Peace" being the second motto, but which was only used in one match. All of the games played under the "Match for Peace! Stop the War!" motto featured a small concert with Ukrainian singers before, during half-time and after the game. The "Hand in Hand for Peace" game is the only Dynamo game so far to be held without a concert during the event.
The tour for Shakhtar was held under the name "Shakhtar Global Tour for Peace". Like the refugees that the tour is mostly raising money for, Shakhtar have faced the situation of being forced out of their home, having been unable to play in their home stadium since 2014 when Russian forces invaded Crimea and the Donbas region, starting the Russo-Ukrainian War. Since 2014, Shakhtar have played their home games at Tsentralnyi Stadion in Cherkasy, Obolon Arena in Kyiv, Chornomorets Stadium in Odesa, Slavutych-Arena in Zaporizhzhia, Bannikov Stadium in Kyiv, Arena Lviv in Lviv, OSC Metalist in Kharkiv and the NSC Olimpiyskiy in Kyiv. For the majority of the games on the Shakhtar tour, both teams have played without a sponsor on the front of their shirts, instead, wearing a Ukrainian flag with "Stop War" written on it in the sponsorships' place.
Teams (phase one)
Dynamo & Shakhtar tours
Greece
The tour started on 9 April 2022 with Shakhtar Donetsk playing in Greece against Olympiacos. This was the first time a professional team from Ukraine had played a game since the invasion of Russian forces. The teams wore "Stop War" on their shirts in place of sponsors, with Shakhtar players wearing names of cities and towns heavily bombed by Russian forces in place of their own last names. The stadium however saw a low attendance, in part due to the event being organised at short notice, with another factor being that Olympiacos ultras were not wanting to condemn the war due to their fan friendship with Russian football team Spartak Moscow. Those Olympiacos fans who were in attendance left toys on empty seats to be donated to the children of Ukraine. Shakhtar, who had only 1 training session since the invasion and with the loss of all of their foreign born players due to the invasion, fell to a 1–0 defeat.The amount raised from the Olympiacos game was ₴3.2 million.
Poland
Dynamo Kyiv's tour started on 12 April 2022 in the Polish capital, playing against the Polish champions Legia Warsaw. The match was attended by over 20,000, however the fans from the Żyleta section of the stadium were notably absent, with a Legia fan group announcing that after discussions with Dynamo fans, who feel that their owners Ihor and Hryhoriy Surkis have pro-Russian views, decided not to attend the match. Before the game both teams players were draped in Ukrainian flags, with a large banners of "Stop The War" featuring on the Żyleta end of the stadium, and banners of "Stop Russia Now" also featuring around the ground. Dynamo won their match with their first goal of the tour coming from Vitaliy Buyalskyi. The match paired up to being a concert too, with performances before and after the game, as well as during half-time. The singing performances for the Legia game were from Tina Karol, Julia Sanina, Kateryna Pavlenko, and Dorofeeva. Due to Poland accepting more Ukrainian refugees than any other country the game in Warsaw saw a large amount of Ukrainian's in attendance who had either been displaced by the initial invasion in 2014, or displaced by the more recent events in 2022.Prior to the Lechia Gdańsk game against Shakhtar an initiative was set up by the Gdańsk Foundation as part of the "Gdańsk Helps Ukraine" campaign called the "Ticket for Peace". The initiative was set up so that people could make a ticket donation online so that a Ukrainian refugee living in Gdańsk would be able to attend the game for free. Lechia brought out a red kit for specifically for the game, with Shakhtar opting to wear their white third kit for the game. The game was 2–1 to Shakhtar going into stoppage time, with Lechia equalising in the 92nd minute. After Lechia's equaliser, Dmytro Keda, a 12-year-old Shakhtar fan who had escaped from the Siege of Mariupol and fled to Poland, came on as a substitute and scored Shakhtar's winning goal in the 94th minute. The first two goals in the tour for Shakhtar both came from Mykhailo Mudryk, and the game saw over 12,000 spectators in attendance, the second highest attendance Lechia had for a home game that season.
The total amount raised from the Polish section of the tour was ₴9.5 million. ₴7 million was raised from the Legia game, and ₴2.5 million from the Lechia game.
Turkey
The tour in Turkey, which would see two games being played in Istanbul, started on 14 April 2022. The first game played in Turkey was between Dynamo and Galatasaray. The game saw the Dynamo manager, Mircea Lucescu, facing the team he had previously managed from 2000 to 2002. Apart from Galatasary, Lucescu also managed Beşiktaş and the Turkish national team, highlighting before the game that "he knows very well how helpful the Turkish people are" and the hopes that the games in Turkey can help to raise the needed funds for those Ukrainians who have been displaced. The crowd for the Galatasaray was a contrast of what was experienced with Dynamo's game against Legia, where the large amount of Ukrainians in attendance made the game feel more like both sides were equally supported. The Galatasaray fans made a more intimidating atmosphere, one which would be expected in a European club game. Despite the loud support for the home team, Dynamo comfortably won the match 3–1 with both Buialskyi and Besedin each scoring in their second consecutive game of the tour.The second game of the tour to be played in Turkey was Fenerbahçe against Shakhtar. This was to be the first of two games in the Turkish capital for Shakthar in Turkey, who based themselves in Istanbul city for the first phase of the tour. While warming up, Shakhtar players wore t-shirts showing a picture of a 4 year old Ukrainian girl called Alisa, who has been trapped in Mariupol during the siege, and at the time of the game had spent 55 days living underground in a bunker. Over 11,000 fans attended the game, with chants of "Ukraine! Ukraine! Ukraine!" being heard from Fenerbahçe fans and Ukrainians in attendance throughout the match. Despite both teams hitting the woodwork, Fenerbahçe won the game 1–0 with the only goal coming in the first half from Enner Valencia. After the match, while the story of Alisa and the pre-match shirts was again being highlighted, comments made by the Shakhtar goalkeeper, Andriy Pyatov, stated that more attention needed to be given to the fact that over 200 Ukrainian children had already died due to the actions of the Russian army and calling for the Russian army to stop their war of aggression.
Shakhtar's second and the third game to be played in Turkey was the game against Antalyaspor. Before the game Shakhtar players once again wore tshirts bearing a message of the war. Before the game with Antalyaspor the warm-up shirts highlighted the number of children who had been killed since the outbreak of the war. The two teams started the game well, each finding the net in the first quarter of the game. After going in level at the break, both teams made a high number of substitutions with Shakhtar edging the game with a late goal. The games against Fenerbahçe and Antalyaspor were the only games during the tour to be played in Asia.
The total amount raised from the Turkish section of the tour was ₴5.5 million+. ₴5 million was raised from the Fenerbahçe game, and ₴500k from the Antalyaspor game. The money raised from the Galatasaray game was announced with the amount also raised from the Cluj match, with neither matches fundraising amounts being released individually.