FIFA and UEFA today announced that all Russian football teams are banned from their tournaments until further notice.
“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,” football governing bodies said in a statement.
“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 ban also means that, as things stand, the Russian women’s national team would be ruled out of competing at Euro 2022.
In a separate statement, UEFA announced that it had axed its partnership with Russian company Gazprom “with immediate effect.”
FIFA had earlier been in advanced talks regarding Russian teams after Poland, Sweden and the Czech Republic refused to play against Russia in an upcoming men’s World Cup qualifying semi-final and potential final in Moscow on March 24 and March 29.
“As long as the Russian aggression continues, I want the EU to make a decision that we should not have any participation in Russian events and we should exclude Russian professional practitioners from participating in events in other countries,” Swedish Minister for Sports Anders Ygeman said in a statement.
Shortly before FIFA and UEFA’s announcement, the Netherlands’ FA, KNVB, also joined the list of countries to state that none of their international teams will play against Russia or Belarus until further notice.
Last week, UEFA announced that it was moving the 2022 men’s Champions League final from St. Petersburg to Paris.
