You're reading: Shakhtar’s Lucescu to honor last year of contract despite escalating violence in Donetsk

Shakhtar Donetsk coach Mircea Lucescu returned today to the club’s hometown to announce he will see the last  year of his contract through. The 68-year-old Romanian said that after consulting with team owner and president, billionaire Rinat Akhmetov, that he “couldn’t leave the team at such a difficult moment,” referring to separatist unrest in the region where gun battles rage on a daily basis between Ukrainian forces and Kremlin-backed militants. 

“It was difficult getting from
Kiev to Donetsk. It’s odd to see a checkpoint at every kilometer. I came back
to Donetsk whereas many have left the city since I’ve been gone,” he said at
Donbas Arena during a news conference, citing when he left in late May after
the soccer season ended.

Asked whether he received a
contract extension beyond next year, Lucescu, who marshaled the team to victory
in the 2009 UEFA Cup, said it isn’t a concern at the moment. He continued: “We
(first) must return to a normal life when we are not scared to walk the streets
of Donetsk. I hope that the time will soon come. I would like to play our home
games in our stadium. I hope a compromise is found and that sound reasoning
will triumph at the negotiating table. I hope that I could see people taking
quiet strolls during their leisure time.”

Shakhtar had to play the final
games of the season on neutral turf because of the escalating violence in the
nation’s eastern-most regions of Donetsk and Luhansk. It is scheduled to play
Dynamo Kiev on July 22 for the domestic league’s Supercup, but in the western
Ukrainian city of Lviv.

The eight-time domestic league
winner, including consecutive championships in the last five seasons, added
that the team is leaving Donetsk on Tuesday to start training camp in the
Austrian town of Going.

“I hope that by the time we return
(to play Dynamo), the situation will have calmed down, and we could only think
about sports, and not of war,” said Lucescu.