Ghost of football past stalks abandoned Ukraine arena
DONETSK: In its halcyon days, the Donbass Arena in eastern Ukraine was a gleaming temple to football, welcoming some of the sport’s biggest names through its portals.
But while star players are now lining up in the Confederations Cup tournament across the border in Russia, the Arena is wasting away.
Seized by insurgents waging a bloody three-year conflict against Kiev, the venue is in a state of pitiful decline.
The stands which once echoed to the chants and cheers of miners and their families are long deserted. The once-hallowed turf has turned a sickly yellow in parts. The floodlights died long ago, and the shop that showcased the merchandise of host club Shakhtar Donetsk is empty.
“It is very sad that we are no longer able to get to the stadium,” local supporter Yury Zhavoronkov said in an empty sports bar nearby.
“It was our football mecca where we all met together,” the 50-year-old grey-haired fan lamented.
The 52,000-seat venue was state-of-the-art when it opened in 2009, back when the city of Donetsk was another place.
The former Soviet mining hub was undergoing a mini-boom as local-boy-made-good Rinat Akhmetov ploughed huge sums into the city.
Akhmetov, a metals tycoon who rose to become the richest person in Ukraine, had turned local club Shakhtar into champions and decided to splash some US$400 million (RM1.7 million) on building the team a fitting new home.
He hired the top designers behind Bayern Munich’s Allianz Arena and the “Bird’s Nest” stadium in Beijing and got megastar Beyonce to sing at a glitzy unveiling.
In June 2012 the stadium basked in the international spotlight as it hosted the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo, Andres Iniesta and Xavi Hernandez as Spain beat Portugal on penalties in the semi-final of the Euros championship.
But that high point would soon turn out to be a bittersweet memory for Ukrainian football fans. Under two years later Donetsk and the surrounding region plunged dramatically into bloodshed that almost no one saw coming.
After the February 2014 ouster of Ukraine’s Kremlin-backed leader by protesters in Kiev, Moscow seized the Crimea region and was then accused of masterminding a rebellion that engulfed the east of the country.
As the conflict worsened, so inevitably Shakhtar Donetsk and their stadium were impacted as well.
In May 2014 the club halted matches at their stadium as international organisations demanded game stop in a war zone and the club upped sticks definitively and shifted their home base away from the city.
And with the conflict in east Ukraine showing little sign of coming to a conclusion it looks like there is no chance that crowds of fans or international stars will be back any time soon. AFP