The shock wave caused by the invasion of Ukraine by Vladimir Putin’s Russia is on the way to weakening the powerful International Football Federation (FIFA) and its Swiss-Italian president, Gianni Infantino. If the latter said to himself, Thursday, February 24, “preoccupied” by a situation “tragic and disturbing”FIFA waited until Sunday, February 27, to make a decision on the Russian question.
At the end of the meeting of its “office”, the body announced that no official international match would take place in Russia: the Russian national team will play its matches on neutral ground and behind closed doors. The term Russia will be banned in favor of the “Russian Football Union” during competitions, and the Russian flag and anthem will be banned.
According to FIFA, this would be a first round of sanctions: the organization warns that its office could take other measures, ” including a potential exclusion from competitions, which will be enforced in the near future if the situation does not improve soon. »
There is no doubt that FIFA’s decision will not satisfy the Polish, Swedish and Czech federations, which announced on Saturday and Sunday that they were giving up playing their scheduled or potential match against Sbornaya in the qualifying play-offs for the Cup. of the World 2022, organized in November and December in Qatar.
From the first hours of Mr. Putin’s army offensive, on the night of Wednesday February 23 to Thursday February 24, the Ukrainian Football Federation had asked FIFA and the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) to exclude Russian national teams and clubs from their competitions.
UEFA has since relocated to the Stade de France, in Saint-Denis, the final of the Champions League, on May 28, which was to take place in Saint Petersburg. According to our information, the European body is preparing, in the coming days, to break its contract with the Russian energy giant Gazprom, its sponsor since 2012.
In this burning context, will Gianni Infantino and FIFA exclude national teams from competitions organized by FIFA – including the 2022 World Cup – as suggested on Sunday February 27 by Noël Le Graët, the president of the French Federation? football, and suspend the Russian federation (RFS), even temporarily? Under the statutes of the international federation, the FIFA council (government) can suspend “provisionally” the Russian federation, as Jean-Loup Chappelet, professor emeritus at the University of Lausanne, reminds us. This suspension must then be “confirmed” over there three-quarters majority of the 211 national member federations of the FIFA Congress.
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