Instead of being one of the biggest sports events of the year in troubled Ukraine, Dynamo Kiev's game against Chelsea in the Champions League turned into a public display of the country's struggle to contain violent racists.
Echoing past decades of European football violence, at least eight people were brutally beaten at the game, including a 21-year-old African student.
While clashes between rival fans are comparatively common at Ukrainian League games, racist attacks on such a large scale are rare.
"Around the 25th minute, I started to take photographs on my phone, when I picked up the phone to look at the photographs I'd taken, I was hit. I fell down some stairs and felt almost as if I had lost consciousness."
The Congolese student, spent almost a week in hospital with a head injuries to his nos which required surgery, and due to fear cannot face to go to the stadium again.
"For me If I go to a game another time, it would be as if I didn't get the hint," he says.
UEFA sent its security chief Mark Timmer to Kiev on Monday, where he criticized Ukrainian officials over the attitude of security personnel at the game and the federation's outdated safety procedures, according to an account of the meeting posted by the Ukrainian Football Federation, whose executive director Volodymyr Heninson said the case was Ukrainian football's "last yellow card" before serious sanctions.
It is far from Ukraine's first case of football racism. In March, UEFA punished Dynamo with a fine and partial stadium closure over racist fan attitute in a game against Everton, while FIFA punished the Ukrainian national team in 2013 over racist chanting at a World Cup Qualifier against San Marino.
Over the course of approximately 15 minutes in the first half of Dynamo Kiev's Champions League game against Chelsea on October 20, hooligans launched a wave of attacks in one corner of the Olympic Stadium.
Most of the victims were black, while three were white, some attacked after trying to protect black victims. There is no evidence that the victims had been supporting Chelsea.
Their attackers hunted in packs, sending some members around to cut off their victims' escape route, says Mykhaylo Smolovoy, a Ukrainian fan who witnessed the attacks.
Anti-discrimination group Fare, which sends observers to monitor racism at major European games, captured video of four black men being chased through the crowd. They try to escape but some are caught and beaten, as are white men who try to assist them. Stadium security did not intervene.
Such videos have become evidence in an investigation by UEFA, which could force Dynamo to play future home games in an empty stadium or deduct points from the team.
Kiev police are carrying out a criminal inquiry into the stadium attacks under the criminal offense of hooliganism, which carries a penalty of up to four years in prison.
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