Shakhtar Donetsk football club filed a complaint with the European Commission against the International Football Federation (FIFA) due to its decision to allow foreign players to suspend contracts with Ukrainian clubs until the summer of 2023 because of the war, in connection with which the club lost about $43.6 million and is seeking damages, the BBC said on Thursday.

"We expect the European Commission to understand and appreciate the extreme financial pressure our club is under due to FIFA's actions while our country is being ravaged by an illegal war," CEO Serhiy Palkin said in a statement.

As noted in the statement, the European Commission is not the first instance to which Shakhtar applies with this demand. The first lawsuit against the federation was filed last summer with the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Lausanne, but it was dismissed in January of this year. The lawsuit alleged that because of the emergency rules adopted by FIFA, the transfer of four foreign players from Shakhtar for EUR 50 million was disrupted.