The global soccer community sent a clear message to FIFA on Sunday: Half-measured responses to Russia’s Ukraine invasion won’t be accepted.
FIFA finally heard that message.
On Monday, FIFA — world soccer’s governing body — and its European counterpart UEFA came to a joint agreement to indefinitely ban Russia from competition in response to the invasion launched in Ukraine last week. It’s a major blow to Russia, which will be forced to forfeit its spot in the UEFA play-off for World Cup qualifying. UEFA will also ban Russian club teams from men’s and women’s competitions, booting Spartak Moscow from the UEFA Europa League.
Both governing bodies released a joint statement on the decision:
Following the initial decisions adopted by the FIFA Council and the UEFA Executive Committee, which envisaged the adoption of additional measures, 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.
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.
UEFA also decided to end its sponsorship agreement with Russian energy company, Gazprom.
UEFA has today decided to end its partnership with Gazprom across all competitions.
The decision is effective immediately and covers all existing agreements including the UEFA Champions League, UEFA national team competitions and UEFA EURO 2024.
— UEFA (@UEFA) February 28, 2022
But let’s not overlook the shamefully slow road FIFA took to arrive at this decision.
