And theThe Czech Football Association announced, on Sunday, its refusal to confront the Czech national team with its Russian counterpart in the European qualifying round for the World Cup 2022, against the background of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, to join its Swedish and Polish counterparts, who made the same decision on Saturday evening.
The Czech federation said in a statement that “the Czech national team will not play, whatever it is, a possible match against Russia in the World Cup qualifiers,” referring to the European play-off that put his country in the second track, where it meets its Swedish counterpart on the 24th. In March, the winner of them will face Russia or Poland in the final for a ticket to qualify for the Qatar finals 2022.
But with the decision also taken by Poland on Saturday by its refusal to face Russia, similar to Sweden, which pre-empted the possibility of facing the Russians in the final, the fate of this track of the continental supplement is in jeopardy.
Russia was scheduled to host Poland on the 24th March and Czech Sweden on the same day, with the winners facing Russia in 29 from him.
The three federations preempted any decision from the International Federation (FIFA) regarding this annex by refusing to confront Russia, whose President Vladimir Putin launched a military operation against neighboring Ukraine, which entered its fourth day on Sunday.
Moscow has ordered its forces to advance “from all directions”, while the West responded late Saturday night with sanctions seeking to cripple the Russian banking sector.
Ukrainian officials said 198 civilians, including three children, had been killed since the Russian invasion began Thursday morning.
After the decision of the Polish and Swedish federations, the president of the Czech federation, Petr Vucic, said on Saturday that he would wait for the FIFA step before making the final decision regarding his team’s confrontation with Russia, explaining, “In these circumstances, it is almost impossible to imagine that we will play the match, and it is likely that we will follow the steps of Poland and Sweden, But we can’t skip the procedural steps.”
The three federations issued a consolidated statement on Thursday, asking FIFA to transfer the play-off matches from Russia, which hosted the World Cup four years ago.
It seems that the Czechs made up their minds on Sunday, and joined Sweden and Poland without waiting for a decision issued by the International Federation, which has not yet taken any measure against Russia, only saying on Thursday that its president, Gianni Infantino, was “worried” about the “tragic and frightening” situation.
“The first match (in the European play-off) is in a month, of course we hope to resolve the issue long before that… But our office can make a decision at any time,” Infantino told a news conference.
In a separate development, the Swedish government said it would try to persuade the other 27 EU countries to impose a blanket sports ban on Russia “as long as the invasion of Ukraine continues”.
The Swedes propose to boycott all competitions hosted by Russia and not allow any Russian athlete to compete on the territory of European Union countries.
It is expected that FIFA will announce that the play-off matches will be moved from Russia to Poland, or to a neutral territory, at the very least.
In the worst “scenario” for the Russians, the Russian team will be excluded from participating in the European play-off, which means the demise of the chance to qualify for the 2022 World Cup.