Shakhtar Donetsk will skip three Champions League qualifying rounds in July and August and go directly into the 36‑team main phase that starts in September, a windfall that should bring the club at least 35 million euros in UEFA prize money.
“I think we deserve to be there in the Champions League,” general director Sergei Palkin said in a telephone interview with The on Tuesday, adding that the club would use the spot to send “a message that our club continues to represent Ukrainian football with dignity.”
The financial and sporting figures are immediate and stark. The direct place into the main phase guarantees Shakhtar a minimum of 35 million euros — roughly $41 million — and removes the uncertainty of three qualifying rounds in summer. The club sealed its domestic claim on the weekend with a 4-0 win at Poltava that clinched its 16th Ukraine Premier League title.
Shakhtar’s presence in the main phase came via the reallocated spot that opens when the Champions League winner has already qualified for next season’s edition. That chain of events was completed by results elsewhere: Olympiakos drew in Greece while AEK Athens won to clinch the Greek title, and Rangers lost at Celtic in Scotland, outcomes Palkin said the club had been watching closely. “It’s almost one month we were on the pulse trying to understand what we tracked in the Greek league and the Scottish league,” he said.
The club’s UEFA standing helped make the reallocation work for them. Shakhtar were ranked No. 45 with 56.25 club coefficient points, a total boosted by reaching the Conference League semifinals this season. That placed the Ukrainian champion in position to take the freed spot in the 36‑team field rather than entering the early qualifying gauntlet.
That field begins in September, and Palkin was blunt about expectations. “We are not selling them comfort, they understand that,” he said of the squad and the challenge ahead, before pointing to the broader symbolism for Ukrainian football in their return to the Champions League main stage.
Off the field the club’s story remains complicated. Shakhtar have been exiled from Donetsk since 2014 because of the first wave of Russian‑backed conflict and now stage domestic home games in Lviv while playing UEFA fixtures in Krakow, Poland. Even as the team prepares for the Champions League, it carries the long shadow of displacement and the practical burdens of a club operating away from its city.
Sporting composition deepens the angle. The squad includes 12 Brazilians, and only Marlon and Pedrinho are older than 23, a youthful core that helped push Shakhtar to the domestic title and a deep run in European competition. Their recent European schedule has already taken them to neutral venues; fans followed fixtures such as Crystal Palace Vs Shakhtar Donetsk: Palace Hold 3-1 Edge After 0-0 Second Leg and the club will host big matches in Poland, as previewed in coverage like Shakhtar Donetsk Vs Palace: Semi-final first leg in Krakow kicks off at 20:00 BST.
The immediate consequence is clear: Shakhtar arrives in September’s Champions League main phase with guaranteed revenue and a bolstered profile. What remains unresolved is whether that political and logistical disruption — exile from Donetsk, home matches in Lviv and UEFA games in Krakow — will blunt the competitive edge the club insists it has earned. Palkin’s answer is emphatic: the club will represent Ukrainian football “with dignity” as it returns to Europe’s top table.
