The Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) has obliged the Ukrainian national team to remove a politically-inciteful slogan from its uniforms ahead of the 2020 Euro Cup, the UEFA press office said.
The Ukrainian national team’s uniforms for the upcoming championship featured slogans chanted by Ukrainian nationalists namely: ‘Glory to Ukraine! Glory to the heroes!’ The uniforms also demonstrated a blurred image outlining Ukraine’s state borders, which include the territories in Donbass and also the territory of Russia’s Crimea.
"Following concerns raised by the Russian Football Union [RFU], UEFA today reconfirmed its position regarding the design element on the front of the Ukraine national team shirt," the statement from UEFA reads. "Considering that the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 68/262 which was widely approved by the member states, recognizes the territorial borders as broadly depicted by the design, UEFA does not require any modifications of this design element as it meets the criteria laid out in article 12 of the UEFA Equipment Regulations."
"UEFA also confirmed that the slogan on the outside of the shirt "Glory to Ukraine" was approved in 2018 and reiterated that UEFA considers this to be in accordance with articles 13 and 19 of the UEFA Equipment Regulations," according to UEFA.
"This slogan on its own may be considered as a generic and non-political phrase of general national significance and therefore may be used on the national team shirt," TASS cited the statement as saying.
However, UEFA stated that it "carefully considered the recently added slogan on the inside of the collar "Glory to our heroes" which was included in the new shirt sample submitted to UEFA which was subsequently validated in December 2020".
"At that time however, the significance created by the combination of the two slogans was not considered," the statement reads. "Following further analysis, this specific combination of the two slogans is deemed to be clearly political in nature, having historic and militaristic significance."
"This specific slogan on the inside of the shirt must therefore be removed for use in UEFA competition matches, in accordance with article 5 of the UEFA Equipment Regulations," the European governing football body added.
