“It’s really difficult to understand what’s going on” – Kommersant FM

The UEFA Executive Committee canceled the decision to admit Russian junior football teams to international tournaments. The official reason was that a technical solution could not be found. In fact, according to Kommersant FM sports commentator Vladimir Osipov, this happened due to statements from some countries that they would not play with teams from Russia. And, in his opinion, such stories will become a serious problem in world football in the future.

When UEFA officials published decision to admit Russian juniors to international tournaments, it seemed like a real breakthrough. In addition, the message from the leaders of European football was impeccable: in the release issued by the organization, it was said that children should not suffer.

It’s difficult to argue with this, but the reaction of many countries was lightning fast. 10 countries at once, including, of course, Ukraine, England, France, Poland and further down the list, declared that they would not play football with Russia.

On the one hand, it’s stupid to be surprised by this, but on the other hand, politicians seem to have found an opportunity to influence FIFA and UEFA. It turns out that no matter what the football officials decide, this decision can be canceled. And in the future they will use this, businessman and former owner of Spartak Andrei Chervichenko is sure:

“Let’s imagine: in a year or two we are allowed to play matches, we begin to fight for access to the World Cup, and European teams declare that they will not play with the Russians, as they consider them aggressive. Moreover, a precedent has now been created. And what should we do next?

It’s really difficult to understand what’s going on. It seems that football officials are acting as in the old Russian proverb “Both ours and yours will dance for a penny.” Although we are, of course, not talking about pennies.

In the current football season, UEFA plans to earn no less than €6.7 billion. This is the main task, on the way to which European football officials do not need problems. That is why they even came to Russia.

So, this year at the RFU conference there were both the representative of the European association in FIFA, Heidi Beha, and the adviser for the affairs of the UEFA department of national associations, Joseph Kliment, who in Russian conveyed greetings from the leaders and promised to solve the problem to everyone present.

Then the official position appeared – the return of Russian football can only happen after the completion of the SVO in Ukraine. But it is already clear that sports organizations will in any case follow the lead of those countries that are just about to threaten a boycott.

So in the near future, in any case, you shouldn’t count on a positive outcome for Russia in this matter, football manager Yuri Belous is sure: “The World Cup will be held in the USA, Canada and Mexico. We won’t get a visa there, relax. We need to prepare for 2030.”

You can’t count on Euro 2028 either: on October 10 it became known that the tournament would be held in Great Britain and Ireland. But there seems to be a chance of getting to the Euro in Italy and Turkey in 2032, but this is not certain.

In the meantime, the team will have to play friendly matches. Right now the team is preparing for another such meeting with Cameroon. The Russian team held an open training session, where, of course, questions about the decision of European football officials could not be avoided.

The team’s head coach Valery Karpin did not develop the topic, but still expressed his opinion: “To be honest, I didn’t expect that they would allow it, and I didn’t expect that they would cancel it. Well, there were just more surprises.”

Well, we were surprised and moved on, especially since now the Russian team’s opponent is quite serious, and the match will take place in Moscow. On October 12, Russia plays Cameroon at the Dynamo Stadium, so fans can go to the football and support Karpin’s team. Moreover, the behavior of officials from FIFA and UEFA does not leave us with any hope for any changes in the near future.

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