Ukrainian national team in Eden? They can play here for free, it’s our form of help, says Tvrdík

The Ukrainian national football team is looking for a new venue to play their qualifying matches, as it is not possible on home soil for logical reasons. Slavia has offered a free rental.

Despite the ongoing war in Ukraine, the life of Ukrainians goes on and so does the sporting world. The national football team narrowly failed to qualify for the World Cup in Qatar, now they will fight to qualify for the Euros.

The 2024 European Championship will be played in Germany and the draw for the qualifying groups was not kind to Ukraine. In fact, it assigned England and Italy to their group, plus North Macedonia and Malta. Only the first two teams will qualify for the EURO.

Ukraine started the qualification with a defeat against England, but then they beat both North Macedonia and Malta and are in second place ahead of Italy, who have one match less. The duel with Malta was played in Trnava in a 7,000-seat stadium, but Ukraine is looking for new facilities.

So the leadership of the Ukrainian Football Federation approached Slavia Prague to see if it could play the October qualifying match in Eden, Jaroslav Tvrdík told reporters, according to the daily PrahaIn.

“We of course reacted by saying that if they chose Eden, we would provide them with all services and all services for free. This means that we will provide them with a match, the standard rent for the Czech national team in Eden is around two, two and a half million crowns. We also want to contribute in this way to help Ukraine,” the Slavia boss replied.

“The Ukrainian national team approached our partners with a request to play their qualifying match somewhere. One of them is Eden. It is for absolutely logical reasons that concern them. We presented Eden to them, we presented them with the possibilities. Part of it is the opportunity to train here. It’s their decision, I think that will be made in the next few days. I consider it essential that part of our offer is a free stay in Eden,” Tvrdík added.

It would most likely be against North Macedonia, which is scheduled for October 14. Arsenal or Chelsea stars in the form of Oleksander Zinchenko or Mikhail Mudryk could come to Prague.

Source: PrahaIN