The Ukrainian Football Association (UAF) has obliged the Ukrainian Premier League (UPL) football clubs to wear uniforms bearing the slogans “Glory to Ukraine!” and “Glory to the Heroes!” This is stated in the UPL regulations for the season 2021/2022 ( .pdf ).

The document says that during the UPL matches, players’ shirts “must have an official large UAF emblem with official slogans approved by the UAF executive committee.”

In the appendix to the regulations, a sample of the emblem is published, where a map of Ukraine is drawn with the image of Crimea, Donetsk and Lugansk and the slogans mentioned above are written in Ukrainian.

In June, the Ukrainian Football Association presented the uniform of the national team players before the European Football Championship. On the back of the T-shirts they wrote in Ukrainian “Glory to Ukraine!”, And on the seamy side – “Glory to the Heroes!” The players’ uniforms were criticized by Russian politicians, and the Russian Football Union  complained  to UEFA about “political motives” on the shirts.

UEFA initially stated that the uniform did not violate the regulations, and a few days later they demanded that the Ukrainian national team remove one slogan recognized as a political one – “Glory to the heroes!” After that, the Ukrainian Football Association announced both phrases as their official slogans.

Double slogan “Glory to Ukraine!” and “Glory to the Heroes!” actively used during the “Euromaidan” in Ukraine in 2014

(c)MEDUZA 2021