Ukraine don’t want Scotland to stand aside so let’s settle this World Cup tie on the pitch

THE forthright words of Ukraine head coach Oleksandr Petrakov, clear amid the chaos of the Kyiv home he has refused to leave in the face of Russian invasion, have brought welcome perspective to a faddish and needless debate that surely must now end.

‘Do I think we should have a World Cup place donated to us? Of course not,’ he stated. ‘We must play in Scotland and get a World Cup ticket on our own.’

The legendary Andriy Shevchenko has said the same, insisting the play-off semi-final currently scheduled for June must be settled on the grass. West Ham United forward Andriy Yarmolenko agrees.

Let that be that then. Let the voices of those affected most by the atrocious conflict in their homeland, proud people with little interest right now in mawkish nonsense and gestures, resonate and carry forward.

And let us Scots, while wishing with all our hearts for an end to the horror unfolding there, feel no guilt whatsoever about wanting to see Steve Clarke and his lads bat aside their national football team and make it to a first World Cup finals in 24 years.

The two things are not connected. Not in the real world, anyway. The very notion that Scotland or Wales, for that matter, should step aside and offer Ukraine some kind of bye to Qatar — simply giving up on everything it has taken to reach this point and everything qualification would mean culturally, socially and financially — has always been unfathomable and quite insulting.

It is the stuff of political opportunists such as Boris Johnson, the type always on the lookout for cheap diversions from other scandals hiding in plain sight, who described Petrakov’s side being waved through to the finals as ‘a good idea’.

It is also the stuff of the ‘look-atme’ brigade, the faux-naif virtuesignallers unencumbered by the realpolitik of life, who want to shout loudest about facile, unworkable answers to impossibly complex issues and then pat themselves on the back for ‘being good’.

Quite why the Welsh FA jumped on the bandwagon and took the issue to FIFA for discussion is anyone’s guess. At least there still seems to be enough common sense within world football’s governing body — a belief previously shattered by a World Cup being taken to the desert in the first place — to have thrown it out of court.

The problem was always that no one actually appeared to ask the Ukrainians what they wanted.

Do they look like people who desire pity? Or people who want their futures decided for them?

Petrakov is a 64-year-old man who refused to leave his native Kyiv for the relative safety of western Ukraine and had to be talked out of going into combat against the Russians by an acquaintance in government.

The Ukrainian FA president Andriy Pavelko addressed FIFA’s congress by video during the week, wearing a flak jacket on the streets of his capital, talking about the need to fight back and win before using football as a means to try to heal the incalculable damage being done.

This is a nation of people who evidently feel the need to fight for their place in Qatar as well, inconsequential as it may seem when compared to everything else going on. They believe in the worth of being seen to earn their place there fairly and squarely. We must work with FIFA to give them every chance of having their shot. We must be patient and understanding and give them all the time we can to fulfil that fixture at Hampden.

Aberdeen have offered Cormack Park as a training base. If other clubs can help out with facilities or friendly matches, that would be admirable, too.

Yet, at the end of that, we must pay Ukraine the basic respect of going hammer and tongs with them in Glasgow. Their players and their coaching staff are individuals with a professional pride at stake. It is no more than they would want or expect.

The same rules extend to the Scotland support. When, and if, that game at Hampden happens, there will undoubtedly be expressions of solidarity. There will be a desire to let the Ukrainian people know the Tartan Army have them in their prayers.

Yet, when the whistle blows, there must also be a partisan wall of noise. An outbreak of normality in a thoroughly abnormal situation.

It will feel more than just a normal football match. It will be more than just a normal football match. It will be an arena in which to suspend realities briefly. To dream. To leave troubles outside for 90 minutes.

For isn’t that always a core purpose of football’s existence, no matter the teams involved?

Pavelko dreams of crowd noise and chants once again filling the streets of his country — and the minds of his countrymen — rather than the shelling and the bombing of the now.

Yet, Clarke (left) and his players must be allowed to indulge in their dreams, too. Dreams they have spent a lifetime working, toiling to achieve. Dreams of participating in a World Cup that germinated in playgrounds, in fields, in front of a television watching John Collins score a penalty against Brazil. They should not be invalidated because of the circumstances.

Nor should the fantasies of us fans, looking forward to a World Cup group only Ukraine and Wales stand between. One that promises a defining showdown with England on the eve of both St Andrew’s Day and the 150th anniversary of the first meeting of the Auld Enemy. One that could help mend the psychological damage inflicted on Scotland by Iran in 1978.

One that might even offer a pathway to the knockout stage in what seems the easier half of the draw.

FOOTBALL has its problems to solve. There is plenty of corruption and deceit. Just as in wider society. Yet, for the ‘look-at-me’ mob with all their easy solutions, it seems to be expected to take the lead on so many geopolitical issues ahead of those who are really responsible. A reflection, perhaps, of how mixed-up our whole culture has become.

Russia must now be treated as outcasts and Roman Abramovich must be expunged from Chelsea, but what allowed him to be here in the first place along with the oligarchs who appear to have bought up half of London and the evidence that points to our political system having willingly been infiltrated?

Saudi Arabia should have no say in Newcastle United. Yet, how can that realistically be demanded when we, as a nation, are selling them arms and the Prime Minister is heading off there and to the UAE to try to strike deals to keep oil prices down?

England manager Gareth Southgate summed it up recently when being quizzed on the benefits of boycotting the Qatar World Cup over human rights.

Qatar, a nation with no footballing history, should never have been given the tournament.

However, boycotting it at this late stage changes little when, to quote Southgate, ‘we are intertwined, as we are seeing with Russia, with all sorts of investment in this country’.

The campaign to stand aside and let Ukraine go through was just another knee-jerk reaction. Another attention-grabbing soundbite.

Yet, it failed to grasp that Ukraine’s footballers are eager to represent their flag on the field and go to the World Cup finals purely on merit.

Self-determination is in their bones. Self-worth will also be part of the deal when going head-to-head with a fully committed Scotland in a winner-takes-all affair.

That’s what they clearly want. And that’s what they deserve.