Croatian former player Ivica Piric spent five years of his soccer career playing in Ukraine.
Now the retired international has returned to help the conflict-wracked nation he calls a “second home.”
In a school gym in government-held territory several hundred kilometers from where pro-Russian rebels have been battling Kiev’s troops for 19 months, the 38-year-old former defender swapped news with dozens of school pupils.
Photo: AFP
They were among the hundreds that Piric — now an agent — has helped send to Croatia to get away from the crisis in their homeland and relax on the Adriatic coast.
“I spent lots of time in Ukraine, I played here and Ukraine gave me and my family very much,” said Piric, who played for Arsenal Kiev.
Over the summer, Piric organized for about 300 children — some who fled the conflict and others the offspring of injured soldiers — to have a two-week break in the Croatian coastal town of Split.
“Every morning we went to the beach and in the evening we played football,” said Georgiy Moskalenko, 12, whose family left the rebel-held city Gorlivka about 18 months ago.
“Everything was brilliant,” said Oleksandr Rudenko, 15, whose policeman father fought on the front line.
For Piric, there is a deeper reason why he felt drawn to help — the plight of the children stirred memories of the war that rocked his own homeland in the early 1990s.
He was 13 when the fighting broke out with neighboring Serbia following the break up of socialist Yugoslavia in 1991 and he remembers how many nations cared for children who were left orphaned or homeless.
“Now I would like to help Ukrainian kids to forget their troubles, at least for a while. Most of them are in a difficult situation, some lost their fathers,” he said.
UNICEF says several hundred children have been killed and wounded, and almost 184,000 uprooted from their homes during the fighting in Ukraine.
Piric’s work has garnered praise for the former player, who was hailed by Ukrainian first lady Maryna Poroshenko during a meeting last month.
However, across the border in Russia — which Kiev and Western nations accuse of sending in troops to back the Ukrainian rebels — Piric’s soccer activities have not gone down so well.
He said a sport director of a Russian club who he had worked with accused him of helping “fascists” in Ukraine — a term the rebels and Russian media have used to attack the government side — and refused to sign documents to help Piric enter the nation.
However, despite the fallout, the former Croatian player says he remains determined to help more Ukrainian children learn more about life in the rest of Europe.
“These children are Ukraine’s future,” Piric said.
“Children who once see how people live in Europe will be eager to come back after they return home,” he said.
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