Scotland World Cup rivals Ukraine could be forced to halt domestic league over Russia tensions rise

Ukrainian football chiefs have insisted their league will resume this week, but admit they may have to abandon their season because of tensions with Russia, with just over a month to go until they face Scotland in a World Cup shootout.

The vast majority of the Ukraine squad play in their homeland and their season has been in cold storage since the start of December.

They are due to restart their season on Friday despite Russia reportedly being on the brink of mounting an attack on the country.

If their season was stopped, it would mean around 16 players in their squad who play domestic football could potentially line up at Hampden having gone almost four months without a competitive game, which would leave Ukraine at a huge disadvantage.

But Ukrainian Association of Football president Andriy Pavelko has insisted they won't halt football despite the threat of imminent war...for now anyway.

He said: "This is a difficult, but important situation for us. It is necessary to keep playing matches for as long as we can to give positivity to the people of Ukraine.

"Stability is very important right now and we want to tell the world that life goes on and the way we can help with that is the resumption of our league.

"We have to hope the difficult days will go away and there will be peace and prosperity for our country. Obviously, if the situation changes, we will have to assess the position.

"And we look forward to playing against Scotland in the play-offs for the 2022 World Cup. This will be one of the most important events of this year for our fans.”

And Ukrainian Premier League chief Yevhen Dykyy revealed: "We continue to closely monitor the situation, but at the moment the season resumes with a match between Mynai and