FIFA kicked Russia out of qualifying for 2022 World Cup after the IOC called for sporting competitions to eliminate Russian athletes after invasion of Ukraine.
Russia’s men’s national team was due to play Poland in the playoffs for Qatar 2022 on March 24th – a match that Poland said it would boycott – but the Poles have already received a farewell to the next qualifying round.
It also means that Russia will not compete in the women’s Euro 2022 in England this summer, as FIFA and UEFA conclude today negotiations to stop Russia from competing to another order.
UEFA has also canceled its sponsorship agreement with Russia’s energy company Gazprom. The sponsorship agreement has been in force since 2012 and is reported to be worth about 40m euros per season.
Earlier, the IOC’s decision, which included Belarusian athletes, followed a meeting of the Executive Council to discuss Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The committee withdrew the Olympic order from Vladimir Putin “in view of the extremely serious violation of the Olympic Truce and other violations of the Olympic Charter by the Russian government in the past.”
FIFA has already been declared an “absolute disgrace” as it failed to oust Russia from the World Cup following sanctions on Sunday.
FIFA today eliminated Russia from qualifying for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar
FIFA (pictured, President Gianni Infantino leaves) has suspended Russia until further notice after Russian President Vladimir Putin (center) ordered an invasion of Ukraine last week
It also means that Russia will not participate in the European Women’s Championship this summer
Russia has been allowed to compete under the name “Football Union of Russia” without a flag or anthem and it must find a neutral country to host its matches, but now they will not face Poland in the World Cup playoffs. next month.
FIFA’s initial response to the invasion of Ukraine seems to have been an attempt to act in a way that is largely in line with the involvement of the Russian Olympic Committee in the 2022 Winter Olympics.
Russian President Putin (left) awards the Order of Friendship to FIFA President Infantino during a ceremony in 2019.
This allowed Russian athletes to compete, although Russia received a two-year ban from the World Anti-Doping Agency in 2019 due to the state-sponsored doping program
However, the IOC’s decision seems to change the game.
UEFA, the governing body of European football, is also expected to take further action against Russia, removing Spartak Moscow from the Europa League.
After depriving the country of the Champions League final, which was to take place in St. Petersburg on May 28, and handing it over to Paris, UEFA is now ready to expel Spartak Moscow from the minor European competition.
Spartak had to play against the German Bundesliga team, RB Leipzig, in the round of 16, but according to the German newspaper Bild, the tie is now expected to be lifted.
Spartak Moscow is expected to be expelled from the European Champions League by UEFA
FIFA STATEMENT COMPLETE
Following initial decisions taken by the FIFA Council and the UEFA Executive Committee, which provided for the adoption of additional measures, today FIFA and UEFA decided together that all Russian teams, whether national representative teams or club teams, will be suspended from participation in both FIFA and UEFA Competitions to another order.
These decisions were adopted today by the Bureau of the FIFA Council and the UEFA Executive Committee, respectively by the highest decision-making bodies of the two institutions on such urgent issues.
Football here is fully united and in full solidarity with all the people affected in Ukraine.
Both presidents hope that the situation in Ukraine will improve significantly and rapidly so that football can once again be a vector of unity and peace between people.
“We continue to maintain close contacts with the associations and have full confidence in UEFA and their decision,” Leipzig head Oliver Minzlaff told the German newspaper.
“We assume that the games will be canceled.”
The European football governing body had already banned Spartak from playing their home game in Russia.
The moves of the IOC and UEFA have increased the pressure on FIFA, which seemed increasingly out of step with European football and the sports world after Putin’s relentless invasion of Ukraine, which began on Thursday.
Four days of rockets, shelling and fighting have led to the flight of more than 500,000 refugees, mostly women and children, from Ukraine to the West, with some children separated or even orphaned since the invasion began. Queues of up to 25 miles are reported on the border with Poland.
An explosion lit up the night sky over Kyiv in the early hours of Thursday as Russia launched a comprehensive attack on Ukraine from the north, south and east with bombs, cruise missiles and rockets falling from the sky
A firefighter inspected the damage to a building after a rocket attack on the city of Kyiv
The horrific reality of Putin’s war has been revealed in images coming from Ukraine, depicting the killing of young children, their deranged parents and the desperate efforts of medics to save them.
Today, President Vladimir Zelensky said in a televised address that 16 Ukrainian children had been killed and 45 wounded in the four days since the invasion began.
The English Football Association has already confirmed that it will not play with any team from Russia, regardless of their name.
The FA is one of seven associations that have announced a total ban on matches with Russia. Others include the Czech Republic, France, Poland, Scotland, Sweden and Wales.
The FA has stated that it will not play with the country’s representative teams at any level or age group in the foreseeable future.
England’s under-17 match with Russia in the elite round of the European Championship, to be held on March 26, was canceled on Sunday night.
Russia were scheduled to face Poland in the World Cup playoffs next month, and Sweden and the Czech Republic will play the winners for a place in Qatar, but all three said over the weekend that they did not want to play.
Poland’s FA President Cesari Kulesha said yesterday that FIFA’s initial decision not to explicitly remove Russia from the World Cup was “completely unacceptable”.
Poland’s FA President Cesari Kulesha said yesterday that FIFA’s initial decision not to ban Russia from the World Cup was “completely unacceptable”.
“We are not interested in participating in this show game,” he tweeted.
“Our position remains intact – the Polish national team will not play with Russia, no matter what the name of the team.”
Swedish FA President Carl-Erik Nilsson told the Fotbollskanalen website: “It is clear that we are not happy about this.”
Albania, which is set to play twice with Russia in the League of Nations in June, has also said it will boycott its matches.