Russia excluded from the World Cup in Qatar: Fifa suspends it

The highest organ of football has decided not to let the Russian national team play the match of 24 March against Poland, which had already announced that it would not take the field. Moscow says: “Discriminatory move”. Just today the IOC had invited everyone not to let Russians and Belarusians participate in international competitions

The situation in Ukraine has led Fifa – and not only – to suspend Russia from the play-offs for the World Cup, effectively removing the possibility of accessing the World Cup from the national team. As is known, Russia should have faced Poland in Moscow on March 24, but the Poles had already made it known that they would not take the field, as well as Sweden and the Czech Republic, other possible opponents in the play-offs. The communication came in a joint note with Uefa, which suspended Russian clubs from all international competitions.

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Solidarity

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The statement also reads that “football is united in full solidarity with the Ukrainians. The presidents of FIFA and Uefa 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 the peoples “.

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The first approach

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Yesterday FIFA had made it known that no international competition can be played in Russian territory and that the “home” matches will be played on a neutral field and without spectators, adding that Russia will not be able to participate with its name, but under the name “Football Union of Russia (RFU) “. A position considered by many to be too soft and which has therefore been changed today.

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Moscow: “It’s discrimination”

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Moscow immediately branded the decision as “discriminatory”. In fact, a note from the Russian Football Union states that the move “has an evident discriminatory character and damages a huge number of athletes, coaches, employees of clubs and national teams and, above all, millions of Russian and foreign fans, whose interests they must first of all protect international sports organizations “.

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The position of the IOC

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Moreover, just today the IOC had reiterated “its urgent recommendation not to organize any sporting event in Russia or Belarus, also asking to ban the athletes of the two countries from all international sporting events and, if it were not possible, to make them compete as neutral athletes.

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The choice of the Euroleague

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A line immediately captured also by basketball. The Euroleague Board has in fact just suspended CSKA Moscow, UNICS Kazan and Zenit St Petersburg from the Euroleague championship, and Lokomotiv Kuban Krasnodar from the Eurocup. If the situation does not evolve in a favorable manner, all the regular season matches already played against the Russian teams will be canceled in order to be able to draw up a new ranking of the championships.

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