Formally, Ceferin’s statement about the desire to soften sanctions against Russian national teams under 17 years old cannot be called news. After all, the decision to allow them to compete under the auspices of UEFA was made back in the fall at a meeting of the organization’s executive committee. But then, two or three weeks later, it was said that for technical reasons it would not be possible to organize Russia’s participation in these competitions. Čeferin and other members of the UEFA executive committee did not explain what these technical reasons were.
Now Čeferin said nothing new. If he had revealed to us how this decision would be implemented, that would be a different matter. In the meantime, I don’t see any concrete actions. The specific action is Russia’s admission to the draw for the qualifying tournament of the next European Championship. It will take place in February.
If we are allowed to participate in it, they determine the group in which we will play, and create a selection calendar – this can be considered a cardinal decision. In the meantime, Čeferin announces only good intentions. Maybe he is testing the situation and possible reaction in the event of Russian youths returning to tournaments. So that it doesn’t happen like in the fall, when the UEFA executive committee allowed us in, but then a scandal was created by a number of leading European countries, whose people work in the executive committee of the organization. When they decided to admit our people, pressure was put on them in their states, so soon everything changed.
More precisely, it was not overplayed. The decision on admission remained in force. It was simply not implemented – Russia was not allowed to draw lots for a number of tournaments. But there is a solution. It just needs to be implemented – this does not require a vote at the executive committee. Allow us to the draw, develop a calendar and allow Russian football players to participate in the competition. Čeferin did not explain how this would be done. Frankly speaking, I can’t imagine it either.
And we must not forget that, in addition to the declared desire to soften the suspension of our youths, the UEFA President also stated that the ban on participation in European competitions for adult teams will remain in force until the completion of the special military operation (SVO) in Ukraine.
Everything is very complicated here. It's not just about combat. On the one hand, only Russia and Ukraine are formally at war with each other. But the entire North Atlantic bloc is involved in this matter, which means almost all the countries of the European Union plus Great Britain and the USA. And even the simple willingness of the two sides to end the conflict will not solve the problem, as the events of the spring of 2022 showed, when, under pressure from the then British Prime Minister, Ukraine refused the truce.
A lot of countries inside Europe are now against us. This carries over to sports in general and football in particular. After all, after the start of the SVO, the whole fuss with sanctions in football began due to the fact that Poland and several other countries refused to play play-off qualifying matches for the 2022 World Cup with us. After this, the suspensions of our teams began.
Now what will happen? Let's say UEFA holds a draw for the Youth Euro with the participation of Russia. Let's say we get to Portugal, the Czech Republic, Ireland, Azerbaijan. And will they want to play? And if they don’t want to, then what are they supposed to do – they all have “steering wheels”, technical defeats, and without any games we will go straight to the quarterfinals of the European Championship?
And then, how to get there? The sky is closed to our planes, visas are not issued. And what to do next? This is what I want to hear from Ceferin: how he plans to overcome the current crisis. It is possible to hold a separate tournament in the qualifying group with the participation of Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Azerbaijan. Maybe the Serbs and Hungarians will play with us. But then we will still have to play with the others in the next stages, and they are already negatively charged against us.
Until we get answers to these questions, Čeferin’s words will remain only a good gesture towards the RFU, nothing more. We are currently in a situation where international and European federations, and not just football ones, adhere to double standards. I don’t know, on my own initiative or under pressure from the political authorities of my countries, as well as the European Union and other supranational structures.
And we see that these double standards are becoming more sophisticated, as shown by the recent situation with the Israeli hockey teams, when the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) suspended the country's teams from competition, but a few days later changed this decision under pressure from the IOC and NHL.
The case is egregious, because since last fall there have been big questions about why Israeli sports are not under sanctions similar to those imposed against Russia and Belarus. After all, unlike us, Israel is waging a full-scale war – not only in Gaza, but also in the West Bank, in the Golan Heights, there is a conflict with Lebanon, and Syria is being bombed. Logically, it was also necessary to ban all competitions involving Israeli national teams.
After all, you cannot play on the territory of this country for security reasons. Protests by supporters of Palestine are raging all around in all European countries, as well as the USA and Great Britain. There may be carnage during the visit of Israeli teams. I don’t know what the IIHF thinks in this case, but its first decision was correct – to ban Israel from playing. The decision was late, but at least it was made, unlike other international federations.
And this decision is correct even apart from the need to maintain consistency after sanctions against Russia and Belarus, since I believe that the conflict in the Middle East itself now poses a much greater threat to the security of competitions. Again, due to possible problems in connection with the speeches of Palestinian supporters. It would be good if things were limited to peaceful demonstrations, but we have already seen how this conflict turns out even in Europe with the example of the tragedy during the 1972 Olympics in Munich with the hostage-taking and subsequent death of Israeli athletes.
But the leaders of some international federations explain the removal of Russia and Belarus precisely by the impossibility of ensuring the safety of our guys if they come to compete somewhere in the USA or Europe. Although I believe much less in possible provocations by the local public against the Russians than in a clash between the Israelis and the impressive diasporas of Palestinian supporters.
But in the end, the IIHF itself abandoned its own decision. And it is very difficult to explain this from the position of common sense. But I can say that when I was vice-president of FIFA, the regulations for such cases had only one wording – “in case of force majeure.” It meant circumstances when it was possible to suspend a team, cancel a match or move it to another country. This was usually related to security.
But to what extent this or that case qualified as force majeure was decided separately by the FIFA or UEFA executive committee. But the regulations did not detail how many shots should be fired from airplanes or cannons in order for it to be considered or not to be considered force majeure. Just “force majeure circumstances” and that’s it. It can be interpreted in different ways. But usually collective decisions were made, when each member of the executive committee carefully weighed the pros and cons, listening to the report of the safety committee, thinking through all the nuances.
I don’t know how this is happening now, since I don’t know most of the people currently working in FIFA and UEFA. And I cannot assess how independent they are in their decisions. In my time, everyone calmly expressed their attitude to this or that event. There was no pressure. Moreover, attempts to intimidate someone. We might not agree with each other at meetings, but everyone understood that the opponent was making a decision based on his convictions, and not some kind of conjuncture.
All expressed the positions of their national associations, which delegated them. And now, it seems to me, most people in the governing bodies of FIFA and UEFA have become too controlled. Therefore, the RFU finds itself in a situation where there are still no obvious methods to resolve the current situation.
The author is the head of the football (1979–1991) and hockey (1987–1989) department of the USSR Sports Committee, the first president of the Russian Football Union (1992–2005), FIFA vice-president in 1980–1996
The editorial position may not coincide with the opinion of the author
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