"Lvivske" together with the fans of the national football team of Ukraine transferred more than one million hryvnias to the state fundraising platform UNITED24 as part of the "Lion of the Match"; award. Not only Ukrainians could choose the best player, but also everyone who wanted to support Ukraine — in total, fans from ten countries of the world voted.
How football players help Ukraine
UNITED24
The winner of the "Golden Ball" Andriy Shevchenko transferred significant sums to help the army, invited two refugee families to his home, developed the design of a special "Milan" t-shirt and handed over 400 000 euros worth of medicines from Italy. Shevchenko became the first ambassador of UNITED24 and has already sent 35 ventilators to Ukraine.
The captain of the national team Andriy Yarmolenko, who was chosen as the "Lion of the match" after the game against Scotland, put his award up for auction. "Together with all the boys, we decided that it was right to auction this award and donate the proceeds to the UNITED24 fund," he stated after the game.
Before the match between "Manchester City" and "Everton", for which Ukrainians Oleksandr Zinchenko and Vitaly Mykolenko are playing, "Everton" players entered the field wrapped in Ukrainian flags, the "City" t-shirts also had a blue and yellow flag.
"Dynamo" and "Shakhtar" organized a tour of Europe, during which they played with clubs from Poland, Turkey, Romania, Croatia, Switzerland, Estonia and Greece. The match between Dynamo and Borussia brought together 35 000 fans in Dortmund — the stadium chanted slogans in support of Ukraine.
Before Shakhtarʼs match with Greek Olympiakos, 176 toys were laid out in the stands — thatʼs how many children had died at the time since the beginning of the full-scale invasion of Russia. Football players came to that game wearing T-shirts with the names of the cities that suffered the most from the Russian invaders: Bucha, Irpin, Mariupol, Kherson, Volnovakha, Chernihiv, Okhtyrka, Mykolaiv, Hostomel, Kharkiv.
A 12-year-old boy, Dmytro, scored the winning goal in Shakhtarʼs game against the Polish Legia. In February and March, he spent ten days in the basement of the Mariupol Drama Theater, but he managed to leave the city. When Dmytro was still very young, he was forced to leave his native Khartsyzk with his parents, when the city was occupied by DPR fighters.
And during the broadcasts of the championship of Spain, the sign Stop invasion was on the screen. The captain of "Bavaria" Robert Lewandowski went to the matches with a yellow-blue armband, and the legendary Spaniard Sergio Ramos organized an auction to help Ukraine.
- The "Lion of the Match" will be chosen three more times this year: in the fall, the Ukrainians will meet with Armenia and twice with the Scots. Every fan of the national team and of Ukraine itself will be able to join the charity initiative.