MOSCOW, April 7, Oleg Bogatov.The Russian Rugby Federation (RRF) intends to file a lawsuit in the courts of Ireland if the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) does not accept the RRF appeal against the decision of the International Rugby Union (World Rugby) to temporarily deprive the RUR of its membership in the organization, said Kirill Yashenkov, Deputy Chairman of the RFU Supreme Council .World Rugby on March 1 decided to deprive Russia of membership. The decision of the executive committee of the organization was made in accordance with the recommendations of the International Olympic Committee (IOC). Earlier, the IOC recommended that sports federations not allow Russian and Belarusian athletes to compete because of the situation in Ukraine. Russia has been suspended from World Rugby until further notice. The national teams and clubs of Russia and Belarus have been suspended from all international rugby tournaments. On March 22, the RDF filed an appeal with the CAS. «We received a two-part decision from the International Rugby Union on March 1. The first is the exclusion of us from all international competitions at the club and national team level. And the second is the immediate suspension of our federation membership. As we understand «This was done on the recommendation of the IOC. We understand that no obligation was placed on this organization, but our colleagues overdid it. They not only excluded us from all competitions, but also imposed a temporary suspension. Maybe this was due to the fact that that this organization is located in Ireland. We consider the World Rugby decision illegal, unreasonable and disproportionately tough. We will defend the rights of our teams and clubs in all courts and instances,» Yashenkov told reporters. «One of the grounds that we use in our complaint , is that all countries and federations must be equal before the law.But we can recall similar military operations that are on the territory of Other countries have been led, for example, by America over the last century. Believe me, this is more than 20 official military operations. For two weeks between me and CAS there is a discussion of the jurisdiction of this case. There are no grounds for making such a decision against us, in my opinion. There was no discussion before these decisions, there is no legal basis in this decision. If CAS considers that this case is not in its jurisdiction, then we will defend our case, obviously in the Irish courts. I think we have good chances. A decision may be made by the CAS within one to two weeks whether they will consider our appeal. Because they used to deal with cases related to rugby in extremely rare cases. We're looking at September with the Rugby Sevens World Cup, which is important to us. We will be focused on admission to this tournament. And the selection for this tournament will begin earlier,» Yashenkov added.
