The Ukrainian women's youth team was unable to travel on time to the UK for their first match in the second qualifying round of Euro-2025 (WU-19) against Austria, which was scheduled for today.

The reason is that the British visas were not issued to the team on time, despite the Ukrainian delegation completing all necessary procedures within the set deadlines and submitting documents as early as March 12. The issuance of visas had been approved, and they were supposed to be delivered directly to the visa center in Kyiv before the team's departure to Poland for their onward flight to England; however, due to logistical issues with the company that collaborates with the official UK visa center in Ukraine, this did not happen.

The flight to the UK was scheduled for yesterday. For two days, Bortnitsky's wards were in Krakow, Poland, waiting for a resolution of the situation.

Finally, after an appropriate request from the UAF several hours ago, representatives of the British government and the Football Association of England agreed to allow the team into the UK without physical visas, considering the positive review of the collective application by the women's national team for their issuance and problems with obtaining them due to force majeure circumstances on the part of the visa center, independent of the UAF.

However, unfortunately, the only feasible logistical option to reach Liverpool from Krakow after receiving this approval turned out to be a flight arriving at the destination late tonight local time, which makes it impossible for the match to take place today. The Ukrainian Football Association has appealed to UEFA to postpone the match until tomorrow — April 3. However, the organization, citing limited international window periods and a tight schedule of matches in this group qualifying round, refused, noting that the game must be played on the set date.

Thus, its result will be determined by UEFA according to the competition regulations.