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World Cup Qatar 2022: What About The Participation Of Russia And Ukraine

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Major sporting events are always organized in the shadow of global contingencies. It happened with the pandemic and the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, which finally took place in 2021. And this year it was the turn of the World Cup: The Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24 forced FIFA to change its plans for Qatar 2022.

First of all, they were forced to make a decision about Russia. Vladimir Putin government , increasingly isolated by Western sanctions, received word on February 28 that your country – which will host the last World Cup in 2018 – would be out of the play-off games scheduled for March to reach the World Cup, after strong international pressure on FIFA, including from other selected teams who had declared that they would not play against Russia.

Following initial decisions by the FIFA Council and the UEFA Executive Committee to provide for additional measures, FIFA and UEFA jointly decided today that all Russian teams, whether national representative teams or club teams, will be suspended from participating. in FIFA and UEFA competitions until further notice, says the statement, which concludes: Both presidents hope that the situation in Ukraine will improve significantly and quickly, so that football can once again be a vector of unity and peace between towns

Ukrainian soldiers attend the funeral of fellow soldier Georgiy Plisak, who was killed by Russian troops, at a cemetery near Lutsk, Ukraine, on March 31, 2022.

The Russian team, led by Valeri Karpin, played in Group H of the European qualifiers and entered the play-off phase after finishing second behind Croatia, who qualified directly for the World Cup 2022. The team was due to play the next qualifying stage on March 24, against Poland, and if they passed that stage, they would receive the winner of the clash between Sweden and the Czech Republic on March 29.

FIFA President Gianni Infantino yesterday in Doha Christian Charisio – dpa

Meanwhile, a possible exclusion of the Russian Football Association from FIFA is not yet on the menu of options, something that was demanded yesterday by the Ukrainian ambassador to Qatar at the FIFA congress. I think they should be excluded from this organization because they committed crimes, they used terror, they violated all the rules of civilization. Andrii Kuzmenko said.

The other FIFA decision concerned the second protagonist of the war: Ukraine. The squad from the invaded country can still qualify, but their play-off semi-final match against Scotland has been postponed to June. , with the hope that the selection can return to the courts by then. June 14 is the deadline: that day the intercontinental play-off phase will be completed in Qatar.

On the other hand, FIFA gave the green light to the possibility for Ukrainian players, as well as foreign players and coaches in Ukraine and Russia, to sign contracts with other clubs without having to wait for a transfer window to officially open.

The Ukrainian soccer leader appeared yesterday dressed in blue and yellow (the colors of the Ukrainian flag) and in an armored vest on the streets of Kiev, and referred to the impact of the war that Russia waged against his country, in a video broadcast yesterday during the FIFA Congress in Doha.

We regularly receive sad news about the death of members of the Ukrainian football community, he said. Andri Pavelko in his recorded message to leaders gathered in Qatar, including delegates from Russia. They were killed by the missiles of the aggressors, one of the largest armies in the world. Football occupies a secondary place in our country”.

In that sense, he did not refer to Ukraine’s participation in the World Cup because, he pointed out, Ukraine’s priority is to protect its country from the Russian invasion.

Our children have suffered terrible psychological damage. Maybe football will help them forget the horrors of war. she pointed outside an area where sandbags were placed around a statue in kyiv. I believe that every word, prayer and action in support of Ukraine and against the war can stop this.

The answer came from Russian Alexei Sorokin , former member of the FIFA Council and General Director of the Russia 2018 Organizing Committee: What does Russian football have to do with this? What has Russian football done wrong? I don’t see a clause in the FIFA statutes that Russian football has violated.

Sorokin confined himself to lamenting these feelings expressed by Pavelko in the video. It is difficult for them. We get it, ” Sorokin said. But I’m not here to talk about politics, military activities or anything like that. I am at the FIFA Congress.”

kyiv hosted the Champions League final just four years ago. So the eyes of football turned to Russia for the 2018 world cup, to which? Gianni Infantino yesterday, the FIFA president described as a great sporting and cultural success.