Prestigious UEFA Cups visit occupation zone in nationwide tour

Three triumphant symbols of UEFA – the Super Cup, Champions League Cup and Europe League Cup – have been displayed in front of the barbed wire fence separating the occupied Tskhinvali region (South Ossetia) and the rest of Georgia.

The Georgian Football Federation initiative saw the cups taken to Dvani village, which lies along the Administrative Boundary Line (ABL), where locals were able to take photographs with the coveted trophies.

A child from Dvani village takes a selfie in front of the UEFA cups. Photo by Georgia's Football Federation. 

"The occupant guards and snipers were watching the event from the other side of the fence,” the Federation wrote on its official Facebook page.

For safety measures, the prestigious cups were escorted to the occupation zone by the special forces of Georgia’s Interior Ministry.

"The whole village met this huge event with much excitement and joy,” the Federation said.

Tskhinvali is one of two Georgian regions that are currently occupied by Russia. In this occupied area and in Georgia’s other occupied region Abkhazia, citizens are prohibited from crossing the so-called border line between the breakaway regions and the rest of Georgian territory.

The UEFA cups were placed near a barbed fire fence separating the Russian-occupied region of Georgia from the rest of the country. Photo by Georgia's Football Federation.  

The three trophies are travelling across Georgian regions in celebration of next month’s prestigious UEFA Super Cup match between FC Barcelona and FC Sevilla.

The 2015 UEFA Super Cup match will be held in Tbilisi at Dinamo Arena on August 11. This is how Tbilisi is getting ready to host the prestigious event.

Tbilisi prepares for the August 11 Super Cup match. Photo by T. Jishkariani. 

The annual football match is organised by UEFA and contested by the reigning champions of the two main European club competitions, the UEFA Champions League and the UEFA Europa League. This year’s match will feature Spanish teams Barcelona and Sevilla, the winners of the two respective cups.

This will be the first time in the tournament history that a Super Cup match is a rematch of a previous edition. These two teams met before in the 2006 UEFA Super Cup in Monaco, when Sevilla won 3-0.