General Director of Shakhtar Donetsk Sergey Palkin criticized FIFA's inaction on the issue of punishing Russia for invading Ukraine.
Sergey Palkin (photo: V. Rasner)- A full-scale war has begun, and at the FIFA congress they accept Russian as the official language. They took out two poor African associations for some kind of corruption scandal, and here the Russians do what they want, and even the topic of excluding Russia from FIFA is not on the agenda.
- Back in March, you called for the exclusion of the RFU from FIFA and UEFA. Why don’t our other clubs and the UAF come up with such a demand?
— Everyone should be responsible for himself. We have a clear, tough and understandable position. If we are at war, then we need to fight everywhere. Otherwise, it turns out that they killed our football, but in Russia they quietly play the championship for themselves and still claim to play in the Champions League, they say they want to play in the World Cup. They are all right, but we all suffer. And FIFA also supports them. What should Russia do to be expelled from FIFA? Drop an atomic bomb on us?
I told foreign journalists that FIFA is like the Lord God: everyone understands that he exists, but no one has seen him. They do not answer e-mail and do not contact. Where are they anyway?
Their messages that we are one football family, that we are for the world... Where was this family when we started the war? We only asked to be heard. There is no family here. They do not care.
