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August 24 – Ahead of the UEFA Champions League draw later this week, Ukrainian Premier League champions Shakhtar Donetsk have announced they will play their home matches in the UCL league phase at Chelsea’s Stamford Bridge. Shakhtar Donetsk CEO Sergei Palkin said: “Playing our Champions League home matches at Stamford Bridge is a very special opportunity for Shakhtar. Of course, our true home is Ukraine, and we all hope that very soon we will be able to play European football in front of our own fans again. But while the war makes this impossible, Stamford Bridge is an exceptional place for us to call home in Europe.. “We are very grateful to Chelsea for opening their doors to us, and we will do everything we can to make our matches there exciting and memorable for both Ukrainian and English fans.” Shakhtar has not played a home match at the Donbas Arena since May 2014, when the conflict in eastern Ukraine first began. Domestic home matches are now played at Arena Lviv, while UEFA competition home fixtures have been played outside Ukraine, with the club hosting matches in Poland, Germany and Slovenia, including at the stadiums of Legia Warsaw, Wisła Kraków, Hamburg’s Volksparkstadion, Schalke’s VELTINS-Arena and Arena Stožice in Ljubljana. Shakhtar President Rinat Akhmetov and the owner of System Capital Management (SCM), Ukraine’s largest investment company which has invested more than $4 billion in Ukraine, is keen to use the London venue to stimulate further investment. Jock Mendoza-Wilson, Director of International and Investor Relations at SCM, said: “As General Partner and Sponsor, it is particularly important to us that Shakhtar’s home matches will be played in London, a global capital of business and investment. This allows us to use this global platform to deliver a clear message: Ukraine can and should be invested in today… And today, from London, we are calling on international investors to do the same and invest in Ukraine alongside us.” Contact the writer of this story at [email protected]