Ukraine holds first soccer tournament for war-wounded amputees — and plans to go international

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — The players were chosen from among the thousands of Ukrainians wounded in the war. With limbs lost to Russian attacks, they gathered at a stadium in Kyiv over the weekend, ready to embark on a new contest: a soccer tournament.

Organized by Ukraine’s Association of Football, the “League of the Mighty” is Ukraine’s first soccer championship for amputees. Over the past year, the association has invested in local communities to establish teams, recognizing the growing number of war-wounded citizens as a result of the nearly three-year war.

With six outfield players and one goalkeeper on each side, they engaged in intense matches. Outfield players, all lower-limb amputees, and goalkeepers with upper-limb amputations, played without prostheses, relying on wrist clutches for control.

Pokrova AMP won the tournament, with captain Valentyn Osovskyi describing the triumph as exhilarating. “We're really glad that we had to work our way through, it was interesting,” he said, adding that the goal is to have their own championship and to create a strong team to represent Ukraine on the international level.

“This will be a priority for the next few years for us,” said Andriy Shevhenko, president of the Ukrainian Association of Football, noting there are more than 100,000 amputees in the country, most of them “soldiers who defended our country.”

For Olena Balbek, adviser to the president of the association, the sport is one way to provide mental and physical rehabilitation for amputees while also normalizing their growing presence in society.

“This is a societal effort,” she said. “We’re focusing on sports because it’s our area of expertise, to make sure this is normalized.”

Citing their own research, Balbek said the association boasts at least 60 professional amputee players in Ukraine – a significant number considering there are around 1,000 worldwide.

Though the reasons are unfortunate, Balbek said, “We have a huge potential in terms of engaging people in the sport.”

Featuring five teams from across Ukraine, the weekend’s championship served as a testament to the association’s success in developing grassroots amputee football across the country since the full-scale invasion began. A dedicated department within the association assists local groups in creating teams.

The work is multifaceted, said Balbek, involving communication with veteran’s groups, local initiatives and football clubs underscoring the importance of establishing amputee teams.

“Football is the best rehabilitation for me," said Mykola Gatala, captain of the Pokrova AMP-One team. "It has helped me both physically and mentally. I’m doing it with my brothers in arms who went through the same things I did. We understand each other.”