Alexandre Usyk features for Polissya against Thomas Müller’s Vancouver Whitecaps in Marbella | OneFootball

According to L'Équipe, heavyweight world champion Alexandre Usyk, a football fan, is officially registered with FC Polissya and featured for a few minutes in a rain-lashed friendly against Thomas Müller's Vancouver Whitecaps in Marbella on Tuesday.

Usyk is at Polissya through a close friendship with president Hennadiy Butkevych, serving as a kind of ambassador. He had already played briefly for the club in Antalya, Türkiye, before the 2022 invasion, during a winter tournament.

Polissya were on a mid-season camp in southern Spain and the deluge hardly deterred the cameo. There was talk of stopping at half-time, but play continued and the late introduction went ahead. The club had paid to stream the match on YouTube, and no one was injured.

As a youngster, Usyk trained at Tavriya Simferopol in Crimea and once dreamed of Dynamo Kyiv. The region was invaded in 2014 and is classed by UEFA as a special zone, with a Russia-backed remake of his old club operating locally.

He often underscores his support for Ukraine, writing in September 2025 that sport can help make the world better after a charity match. In Riyadh in December 2024, after another win over Tyson Fury, he raised a cased sabre lent by Chernihiv’s museum.

Source: L'Équipe