Nobel Arustamyan spoke about the prospects of Russian teams at the international level.
“The main event for Russian football this week is the meeting of the FIFA Congress in Doha. Its results may have an impact in the projection of the next few years, or even decades. The Congress meets annually, in the year of the World Cup it takes place in the host country of the tournament. The next meeting is this Thursday, March 31st.
It will raise the issue of suspension of membership or exclusion of the RFU. At the same time, a couple of weeks ago it seemed that FIFA as a whole would not include the topic of Russia on the agenda of the next meeting – the international federation wanted a delay at least until the summer.
However, this or that question can be raised by one of the delegates. Several football associations from European countries called for a discussion of the fate of the RFU at the end of March. No matter how far away from the topic of FIFA, these federations insisted on their own.
Once again, I would like to draw your attention to FIFA’s position – relatively calm compared to other sports federations. In FIFA, they rather sought to smooth the corners and postpone the issue. Take the topic of the 2022 World Cup play-offs. Until recently, it was not excluded that they would be transferred or held on a neutral field. Only when all the participants (Poland, Sweden, Czech Republic) refused to play with Russia anywhere, FIFA had to exclude the team from the fight for getting into Qatar.
Here and now the international federation tried to postpone the issue. And yet he will be affected.
By the way, it is still unclear whether the RFU delegation will be present in Doha. But in any case, the likelihood that the congress will consider the issue of RFU membership is maximum.
What awaits Russia? I see two options that are being talked about on the sidelines.
• Light: Two years suspension, one of which Russia can challenge and receive a suspended sentence.
• Indefinite suspension of RFU membership. Only after an indefinite time can Russia return to the question of its status.
What is the way out of the situation? It is possible that in the event of a disqualification, the RFU will move from UEFA to the Asian Confederation after the end of the punishment.
A striking example of such a transfer is Israel. The local team competes in UEFA not because of confusion in geography – no, in 1964 Israel hosted and won the Asian Cup. Under the auspices of UEFA, the Israelis moved after a boycott by the Arab states – matches between conditional Libya, Jordan or Saudi Arabia became impossible. In Europe, Israel has been playing since the nineties.
It is quite possible in this case RFS will try to follow a similar path – on the sidelines they are talking about this option very actively. The change of registration will slightly soften the discourse around Russian football. European teams and clubs are unlikely to want to play with Russia in the coming years, and there is no such pressure in Asia.
In the meantime, the likelihood of serious sanctions against Russian football is extremely high, ”Arustamyan wrote in his Telegram channel.