«Football lost»: the head of UEFA — about the removal of Russia

MOSCOW, May 11 Football has not benefited from the situation with the removal of Russia from all competitions under the auspices of the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) in the 2022/23 season, the organization had to break its traditions and the principle of sports neutrality, but there was simply no other way out, the president of the union, Alexander Ceferin, said at a congress in Vienna. Earlier in May, the UEFA executive committee adopted the decision to exclude all Russian club and national teams from the competition in the 2022/23 season due to the situation in Ukraine. Due to the suspension, the Russian national team will lose a place in Division B of the League of Nations. «When UEFA had to break its traditions, step out of its comfort zone and abandon its position of sporting neutrality, football did not win. This may be a dangerous precedent, but in this case, the reasons for what happened were We hope that reason will prevail as soon as possible and order will be restored for the benefit of not only Ukraine, but also Russia, which we hope will return to us as soon as possible,» Čeferin was quoted as saying by UEFA's official Twitter. In March, FIFA and UEFA jointly suspended the Russian national team and Russian clubs from competitions under their auspices, due to which the Russian team was unable to play in the play-offs for the right to play at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, and Spartak Moscow was excluded from the number of participants in the 1/8 finals of the Europa League.