The Executive Committee of the Ukrainian Football Association (UAF) called for the expulsion of the Russian Football Union (UFR) from FIFA and UEFA. The reason? The annexation of four Ukrainian regions and the integration of local clubs into Russian sports bodies.
“We ask FIFA and UEFA to take urgent measures to respond to the actions of the RFU and apply sanctions against the RFU, in the form of exclusion from membership of FIFA and UEFA”, the Ukrainian association reported this Monday, in a statement.
The UAF denounced “the actions of the UFR regarding the integration of football clubs and federations from the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine in Russian competitions and in the structure of the RFU”.
Last October 24 the Russian Government announced the integration of the clubs of the four annexed Ukrainian regions, Donetsk, Lugansk, Jerzon and Zaporizhia to the UFR, a proposal that had the support of the Russian president, Vladimir Putin.
Among the teams that would go to the UFR are Shakhtar Donetsk , the most successful in his recent history of national football; and Zoriá de Lugansk, both from Donbas, and who play in the Ukrainian league. Kristall Kherson plays in the second division, while Metallurg Zaporizhia plays in the bronze division of Ukrainian football.
The Russian authorities made a similar announcement after the annexation of the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea in 24, but his plans never came to fruition. Due to kyiv’s complaint and opposition from UEFA, the UFR had to exclude Crimean clubs from the professional league and instead organized a local championship on the former Ukrainian peninsula.
Ukraine applied in August 2014 to UEFA to sanction Russia for include in their league TSK from Simferopol (formerly Tavria), SKCHF from Sevastopol, who competed last season in the Ukrainian honor division, and Zhemchúzhina from Yalta.
In fact, these three teams made their debut in the summer of 2014 in the Russian Cup, which led some Ukrainian managers and footballers to ask that FIFA take away from Russia the right to organize the World Cup of 2018, management that did not progress.
Local soccer players consider that, since the Russian annexation and the creation of a local league, the interest in football on the peninsula was reduced to a minimum.
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