FIFA and UEFA have collectively banned the all Russian national and international teams from continuing to take part in any of their tournaments. With a heavy EU influence on the UEFA organisation it comes with very less surprise that the Russian clubs will now be eliminated from the ongoing tournaments and will not be allowed in for the foreseeable future.
As the EU has an effect on UEFA, the UEFA federation has an effect on FIFA who also announced that they will not be allowing Russia to take part in any further matches in terms of qualifiers or the actual world cup in Qatar scheduled for 2022 November.
“Following the initial decisions adopted by the FIFA Council and the UEFA Executive Committee, which envisaged the adoption of additional measures, FIFA and UEFA have today decided together that all Russian teams, whether national representative teams or club teams, shall be suspended from participation in both FIFA and UEFA competitions until further notice,” a joint statement issued by FIFA and UEFA on Monday signalled.
“These decisions were adopted today by the Bureau of the FIFA Council and the Executive Committee of UEFA, respectively the highest decision-making bodies of both institutions on such urgent matters.
“Football is fully united here 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 again be a vector for unity and peace amongst people.”
Russia responded with a statement of their own,
“The Russian Football Union categorically disagrees with the decision of FIFA and UEFA to suspend all Russian teams,” reads the statement. “We reserve the right to challenge the decision of FIFA and UEFA in accordance with international sports law.
“We believe that this decision is contrary to the norms and principles of international competition, as well as the spirit of sports. It has an obvious discriminatory character and harms a huge number of athletes, coaches, employees of clubs and national teams, and most importantly, millions of Russian and foreign fans, whose interests international sports organizations must protect in the first place.
“Such actions are dividing the world sports community, which has always adhered to the principles of equality, mutual respect and independence from politics.”