Shakhtar Donetsk is today a nomadic club. A team without a home. The bombs have driven the footballers away from their place of origin in southeastern Ukraine. Also to his fans. There, in the Donbass, the ball has not rolled for nine years now, the club exiled first to Kyiv, then to Lviv and Kharkiv, later to Warsaw and now to Hamburg. In Germany they are playing their Champions League matches this year, a competition that helps this team and its patron, Rinat Akhmetov, gain international visibility.
The owner of this ghost club that is still standing, competing and winning against the odds despite the war, is the richest man in Ukraine. At least he was before the start of the invasion of Russia. According to Forbes, Akhmetov's fortune fell from $14 billion to less than $6,000 in just two weeks in 2022 after the start of the conflict. Today it will probably be much less.
Akhmetov (Donetsk, 1966) is the son of a Donetsk coal miner. There he was born, lived and built his fortune. From absolute poverty, he managed to train himself in Economic Sciences and began purchasing mining assets during the privatization era of the 1990s in Ukraine. Little by little he rose to be the owner of one of the most important holding companies in Europe, System Capital Management (SCM). His businesses span telecommunications, engineering, finance, real estate, transportation and retail, as well as his love club. In 2020 he boasted of owning the most expensive mansion in the world, Villa Les Cedres, located in Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat, on the French Riviera, for which he paid 200 million euros.
A man with his power also had a lot of weight in the country's politics, but as a member of the Party of Regions of the Russophile Viktor Yanukovych, today wanted and captured for high treason. After the outbreak of war, Akhmetov decided to support the unity of Ukraine and declared Vladimir Putin a war criminal, although Zelensky initially doubted whether he would carry out a coup in favor of the Russians. Once defined, he has dedicated himself to the defense of his country, making financial contributions of millions of euros, both in humanitarian aid and in support of the Ukrainian armed forces, for which he has even built portable war shelters. In fact, the sale of Mudrik to Chelsea served to donate 25 million more.
This safeguarding of his country has earned him a direct confrontation with Russia, which has confiscated all his assets and businesses in the country. Akhmetov has counterattacked with a lawsuit against the Kremlin before the European Court of Human Rights for losses he claims amounted to between $17 billion and $20 billion as a result of the bombing of his steel factories in Mariupol.
The influence of this magnate, turned warlord, has gone beyond the economic. In the most dramatic moments he managed to mobilize a veritable army of workers to provide help in several cities. In Mariupol he organized thousands of steelworkers to restore order. These, along with the miners, were deployed in five cities, including Donetsk, although they did not manage to gain control in all of them.
Meanwhile, and always without leaving Ukraine, it has continued to finance a team that FIFA has stripped of its players via decree (the club has sued the international organization for this decision). Footballers like David Neres, Marcos Antonio or Teté left free or at below their price. The commitment to Brazilian players, implemented by Mircea Lucescu and which led them to shine in the Champions League, is little by little returning to the club. The winger Pedrinho and the 18-year-old attackers Newerton, from São Paulo, and Eguinaldo, from Vasco da Gama, have brought the samba back to the Champions League canarinha.
