FIFA, UEFA suspend Russian clubs, national teams

FIFA and UEFA have suspended Russia’s national and club teams from all competitions until further notice.

This was made known in a joint statement by FIFA and UEFA on Monday.

The suspension means that, barring an unlikely change of course in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the country will not be able to face Poland in a World Cup play-off semi-final next month, take part in the Women’s European Championships this summer and Spartak Moscow have been kicked out of the Europa League.

UEFA has also terminated its deal with energy company Gazprom, which is majority-owned by the Russian state and is also a major sponsor of the Champions League.

The sponsorship deal has been in place since 2012 and has been reported to be worth around £33.4m (€40m) per season.

A joint FIFA and UEFA statement read: “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.

“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.”

The decision comes after FIFA and UEFA came under intense pressure from individual countries to go further in their sanctions, with FIFA first having said that Russia could compete as the ‘Football Union of Russia’ and play matches outside of the country.

According to Sky Sports, following the announcement, UEFA confirmed the Europa League last-16 tie between Spartak Moscow and RB Leipzig next month will not take place, with the German club automatically progressing to the quarter-finals.

“As a consequence of today’s decision by the UEFA Executive Committee to suspend Russian club and national teams from taking part in UEFA competitions until further notice, the UEFA Europa League matches between RB Leipzig and FC Spartak Moskva cannot take place, and, as a consequence, RB Leipzig are qualified to the quarter-finals of the competition,” a UEFA statement read.

The Star