On 15^th October 2013, Ukrainian football club Metalist Kharkiv marked World Sight Day by meeting with some of the club's disabled supporters.

For its partially sighted and blind fans, Metalist Kharkiv had organised a tour of the stadium and football academy. Disabled fans learned interesting facts about the stadium history, visited dressing rooms and even took part in a penalty shootout.

After the tour all guests were invited to one of the skyboxes, where other disabled supporters had gathered. The General Director of the club, Vladimir Karpenko, and Metalist players Oleg Krasnoporov and Pavlo Ksyonz, attended this meeting to welcome disabled supporters and new members of the disabled supporters association.

CAFE’s Project Coordinator in Ukraine, Olena Zhyvaikina, was also among the guests at this event. The floor was given to her and she spoke about the fruitful cooperation between CAFE and the football club. This included presenting the CAFE exhibition at Metalist Stadium until 8^th December 2013.

During the meeting the fans had an opportunity to ask a lot of questions, and the best of them were awarded with football souvenirs. Disabled supporters collected the autographs of their favourite players and took pictures with them.

The DSA coordinators expressed one more time their gratitude to the Metalist management for the club's readiness to meet with its disabled supporters.

A version of this article is also available in Ukrainian and Russian.

Published 16/10/2013