July 22 – The Danish Football Association (DBU) has backed FC Copenhagen’s bid to move their Champions League qualifier at Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk later this month to a neutral venue following the Malaysia Airlines crash over territory controlled by pro-Russian separatists.
The first leg is scheduled to take place in Dnipropetrovsk on July 29 but because of the security situation, the Danes want the game moved out of the area.
“We support FC Copenhagen 100 percent in this case and there is no doubt that the DBU is very concerned that UEFA would send a Danish club team to a country, and a region, where very few airlines will even fly to,” said DBU president Jesper Moeller.
UEFA are keeping Russian and Ukrainian teams apart for the subsequent qualifying round but Moeller said that didn’t go far enough and that European football’s governing body should not allow fixtures to be staged anywhere near what is effectively a war zone.
He said the game was going ahead “despite several requests from both the DBU and FC Copenhagen and the fact that the Danish Foreign Ministry calls the area unstable and advises against all travel to the Crimean peninsula and eastern Ukraine.”
“It is important from the DBU’s side that we are doing everything we can, both political and administrative, to back FC Copenhagen in their desire to move the game to neutral ground.”
The club itself is struggling to even find a company to insure it for the trip. “There is no way our travel agent can find any company that will fly us to Ukraine,” head of press and communications Christian Wolny told CNN.
“For us we have no problem with FC Dnipro as a club, or the city that they play in, we just need to make sure that it is safe to travel, that it is safe to be there and also that we can actually get there – which right now is our biggest issue. We are trying to prepare as best as we can, but it is not the ideal way to prepare for a game of this importance.”
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