Where there are people – there is football. It’s a fact of life. It’s true for every village, town, region or island – even those that are only a step away from being a full-blown war zone. Peninsula of Crimea in the Black Sea is a complicated place – and that’s putting it mildly. Geographically in Ukraine, historically and culturally in Russia, really somewhere in between.Wednesday, 18.00: (6.75) Dinamo Br. (4.10) Arsenal Tula (1.45)Where do we begin? We’ll try not to go too far back in history – for the sake of your time and our own sanity. For almost 300 years, it’s been a part of Russia. Firstly, the old Russian Empire and then the Soviet Union. It was a strategically important place in which the Russian army had some of its most important bases. When the maligned Soviet Union broke apart, Crimea became an autonomous republic within Ukraine – but Russia was allowed to keep their naval bases there. For a long time, Ukrainian Naval Forces and Russia’s Black Sea Fleet were to be headquartered in the Crimean city of Sevastopol.Crimea is a weird place, you got that by now. But there were some perfectly normal things, too. Things like football. Sports Club Tavria was a reasonably successful club in the area as they flirted with playing in the Soviet Top League a few times. They even won the first-ever post-Soviet Union championship of the newly independent Ukraine. To this day, Tavria is one of just three clubs ever to have won the Ukrainian League – the two others being Dynamo Kyiv and Shakhtar Donetsk. But that particular club called Tavria doesn’t exist anymore. And here’s why.##EDITORS_CHOICE##Ukraine went through a serious political and economical crisis in 2014. The country stood still while its citizens took to the streets to fight for their beliefs and support their would-be leaders. But it’s not what we at Mozzart Sport Kenya care about. We care about football. And Crimean football changed entirely when Russia decided to enter the peninsula and say something like “Get lost, Ukraine – this is our land!” The Ukrainians didn’t like that one bit – which is hardly a surprise. And, of course, there was a war. Not a long one and not a particularly bloody one, but a war nonetheless. And even though the international organizations hit Russia with all sorts of sanctions and a choir of various politicians singing “It’s not right what you’ve done in Crimea”, the Russians kept doing what they wanted.Wednesday, 21.00: (2.70) Shakhtar (2.95) Dynamo Kyiv (2.70)Remember when we promised we’d keep this story short? Yeah, sorry about that. Anyway, most of the popular Sports Club Tavria’s staff and players decided they should be now representing a distinctly Russian club. So, they formed a new club called Football Club TSK Simferopol, where “TSK” stands for “Tavria – Simferopol – Crimea”. The idea was to join the Russian league and compete under the same organisation as the country’s biggest clubs from Moscow, Saint Petersburg or Yekaterinburg. But, loud protests from Ukraine and other countries, but mostly from UEFA, Europe’s football federation prevented them from going ahead with the plan. So they had to come up with a plan B. And it was to form the Crimean Premier League. It’s sort of Russian, but not quite. And it’s certainly not Ukrainian. That was the most important thing.Many of the clubs are fielding a mix of local youngsters and veteran players who previously plied their trade in the Ukrainian lower leagues. UEFA’s inquiry deemed that five of those eight clubs never participated in any kind of professional competition. This region never had that many professional teams. There was a shortage of qualified referees and officials. Training programs were begun and league officials said they have seen gradual improvement since the league’s conception in 2015.
To this day, most players come from the Russian mainland — and so does a good portion of the funding, from the Russian ministry of sport — but the league also fields players and sponsors from Crimea, along with several Brazilians and some Ukrainians, who risk being barred from amateur and professional matches in Ukraine.Still, UEFA stood by their decision not to grant the new Krymsky Futbolny Soyuz (Crimean Football Association) to enter any international competition. So, Crimean Premier League winners don’t enter the Champions League. You won’t see Real Madrid or Chelsea ever take on TSK-Tavria Simferopol. Still, UEFA is OK with football being played on the peninsula – as long as their clubs don’t try to join the Russian leagues again.It’s a strange league in a strange place, but it’s there and it’s been going on for six years now. The most successful club so far is FC Sevastopol, a club that was formed in the same way as FC TSK Simferopol – by breaking away from an old Ukrainian club of the same name. It’s a new club for a new league, a new club for a new country (sort of).The tensions continue. Ukraine still considers Crimea a part of its own territory. Russia claims the same. Earlier this year there was an outrage in Russia when Ukraine unveiled its new national team kits featuring the outline of their country’s territory – with Crimea included. And while tensions continue – so does football.