Teaching Tolerance Through Football in Ukraine

In Ukraine, Sasha Fomichov is CEO and head coach at the League of Tolerance in Ivano-Frankivsk. He took a series for Goal Click Refugees showing groups including underprivileged kids attending a free football school supported by national champions FC Shakhtar Donetsk, and at a women’s league match pitting a team from Ivano-Frankivsk against one from Bilokurakyne, in the less stable Luhansk region.

The League of Tolerance is a charity focused on social education through sport, democratic participation and entrepreneurship. Fomichov coaches kids from a variety of backgrounds, including the displaced, via a range of football-related projects, trying to interweave themes from the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. This year, one programme was supported by the FIFA Foundation.

Originally a lawyer, educator and coach from Donetsk, Fomichov fled his home in the east of the country due to the conflict, ending up in Ivano-Frankivsk. “My wife and I were expecting a baby and were not in the mood to leave,” he said. “But when our house was fired upon with mortars twice in one week, there was no point in staying.”

“Personally, I am also IDP and ethnic Greek, and it is very good for my coaching to show integration and be a role model,” he added. “I see football as an excellent tool to create social cohesion and make a safe environment for self-expression. We try to be as inclusive as we can and invite all the kids without any limits.”

Fomichov, an ambassador for the UEFA #EqualGame campaign, also has a personal goal: to see 30% female representation in grassroots football in the country. He noted that last season, there was only one female head coach in the Ukrainian Women’s Premier League.

The photos were taken at the main regional stadium established in the Soviet era, and an artificial pitch at the biggest school in the city. One snap features Diana, who has embraced the sessions and is “one of the brightest female stars in our grassroots initiative.” In 2019, she attended the Cologne for the Social Football Summit, at the invitation of the ex-German striker Lukas Podolski.

“I am sure she will become a great coach in the not-too-distant future,” Fomichov said.

Goal Click Refugees is a unique series documenting the personal stories and experiences of refugees and asylum-seekers across the globe through the lens of football.

With disposable cameras, participants captured the realities of their football lives and communities on and off the pitch. The result: intimate photos and personal stories from Jordan to Kenya and South Sudan, and from London to Sydney.

The series offers a platform to unheard voices and shows the power of the common language of football, which unites so many, on and off the pitch.

Many of the stories offer hope, showing how football can help marginalised people find their feet again and re-anchor in a new society. That is particularly relevant at this time of rising global displacement.

Please explore the site and share the stories, which were brought together by Goal Click, the global football storytelling and photography project, and UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency.

Share on Facebook Share on Twitter