As the first draw for football EURO 2024, scheduled for October 9 in Frankfurt am Main, approaches, many have been excited by the question: will UEFA allow the Russian team to qualify for the continental championship? The answer is, of course not! And that's why...
Igor LinnikThe hype arose after the Russian news agency TASS, citing the UEFA press service, spread the news that "the decision on Russia's participation in the Euro 2024 selection draw has not yet been made." Then the media got involved in the case - not only Russian, but also Ukrainian - they say, it can still be. In a word, it smelled like hell.
In fact, the UEFA press service, in response to a request from TASS, answered diplomatically, but by no means evasively: “As for Russia’s participation in the upcoming qualifying matches for the European Championship, we convincingly remind that, in accordance with the press release published on February 28, 2022 , all Russian clubs and national teams are suspended from participating in FIFA and UEFA competitions until further notice."
By the term "further notice" UEFA means a special decision of its Executive Committee, as well as the verdict of the FIFA Council, which imposed an indefinite suspension on the clubs and the Russian team. Cancellation of international isolation measures can follow only after the elimination of their root cause, namely, the cessation of the military invasion of the Russian Federation on the territory of Ukraine.
For greater persuasiveness, UEFA, on the eve of the 2022/23 season, adopted an addendum to the resolution dated February 28, confirming and detailing "the exclusion of all Russian teams and clubs from UEFA tournaments for an indefinite period." Then, on May 2, the Russian Football Union, among other things, was denied participation in the tender for the organization of EURO-2028 and EURO-2032.
The corresponding audacity of the RFU was rejected with the following reasoning: "Given the uncertainty when the suspension will be lifted, the acceptance of the RFU application would be contrary to the decision of the UEFA Executive Committee of February 28, 2022 ... The Executive Committee will remain ready to hold additional meetings to reassess the legal and factual situation as it develops and further decisions are made, if necessary.”
Thus, a month before the draw for the EURO 2024 qualifying tournament, the final tournament of which will be hosted by Germany, the TASS news agency tried to test the waters if the time had come to activate "... if necessary." But received a very eloquent response from UEFA: so to speak... take a walk, Vasya!
But how this message was then interpreted by the media - Ukrainian and Russian - is another matter.
UEFA Logic — Politics of the Russian Federation — Media Practice
Truth-loving and distrustful of our journalists, as usual, began to pick out potential treason from a typical diplomatic press release from UEFA. Although this does not stand the test of elementary logic.
Why does UEFA need a cascade of scandalous refusals by national federations from the most prestigious European tournament due to the participation of the Russian team in it, similar to the one that took place on the eve of the 2022 World Cup play-offs?
Well, it’s obvious that, if we talk about it, not only representatives of Ukraine would stage an anti-Russian football demarche, but at least the same federations of Poland, the Czech Republic and Sweden that already did this in March 2022. Let me remind you that each of them notified FIFA in advance of their categorical refusal to take the field against the Russian team in matches for tickets to the World Cup! And it was their principled position that forced the organizers to send not objectors to the ban, but the RFU team.
Does anyone think that Nyon does not calculate such risks in relation to EURO 2024? Or are Berlin and Frankfurt not interested in the impeccable image of the competition that will start soon? Or in Brussels, the capital of the European Union, the partnership with the commissariats of which the UEFA headquarters cherishes so much, do not follow the development of the above events?
There, as soon as the Russians announced the possibility of holding a November sparring with the national team of Bosnia and Herzegovina, a scandal of an all-European scale broke out. The Bosnians are no longer happy that they got into this story. However, are all of them? After all, their team, along with Kyrgyzstan and Iran, was not by chance chosen by the RFU as a trial balloon.
The hybrid country of Bosnia and Herzegovina is something exceptional on our continent. After the bloody massacre of the 1990s in Sarajevo, a presidium of representatives of the Serbian, Bosnian and Croatian federative communities ruled in turn, on a quota basis, which, to put it mildly, are far from being in solidarity with each other. With all the political consequences that follow from such a shaky alliance...
The Football Union of Bosnia and Herzegovina, at one time, was also led by a triumvirate of conflicting cultures, but in the spring of 2011, UEFA gave it an ultimatum - either choose one president, or play without you. The FSBiH relented, but now it is chaired by Vitso Zelkovich, the nephew of Milorad Dodik, the pro-Russian member of the Presidium of Bosnia and Herzegovina from the Republika Srpska...
This is where the legs of the political sparring scheduled for November 19 in St. Petersburg grow. And since, despite the refusal of most of the stars of the Bosnia and Herzegovina national team to go to this match, the FSBiH has not canceled it, it is quite possible that the action will still take place - albeit with the participation of football players of Serbian origin.
FIFA and UEFA, with all their desire, cannot ban it - this kind of game is not included in the official category. But much more significant is the fact that both international instances do not intend to just cancel the RFU ban at the highest level.
And that is why, by spreading viral fakes, controlled Russian propaganda is so hysterical.
What are the RF and RFU seeking?
The Russian Football Union is also jumping out of its pants in order to put pressure on UEFA for the last time in the "was - was not" mode.
How? Cheered on by the completely stunned authorities, the RFU, through various informal channels, threatens Nyon either with leaving for the Asian confederation, or with the inclusion of representatives, including the occupied Crimea, in its internal tournaments. The football of which has been under the special management of UEFA since December 4, 2014.
What is the calculation? The fact that UEFA will cling to the last to maintain the shaky status quo - unity in the family of European football.
You and I can once again twist our fingers at our temples, but there, behind the curb, in heads that are losing touch with reality, creativity of reckless depth continues to mature.
For example, the 2022/23 season is called experimental in the Russian Federation - football officials have been given the task of preparing for the creation and launch of the so-called open leagues through a code or two. With the inclusion of teams from Belarus, Crimea and Transnistria, LDNR and other Abkhazia and Ossetia...
Where Crimea and Donbass will be in a year or two, after the Ukrainian army has completed the final phase of peace enforcement, I think, not only the RFU is already guessing. In the meantime, they are trying not to think about the possible reaction of UEFA to the announced plans.
Well, if the threat of the RFU to jump off from Europe to Asia may still look more or less reliable, but is generally regarded by Nyon as an ordinary bluff, then blackmail by Crimea and Transnistria is a completely unenviable lot. Guaranteeing the football of the Russian Federation a direct ticket to the inter-clan and even intra-teip level with the inevitable prospect of dividing into championships of individual territories, districts, regions and scattered autonomous republics.
instead of PS. Meanwhile, somewhere on the outskirts of Eurasia - on the green lawns of the united German tribes - from June 14 to July 14, 2024, the EURO 2024 mentioned in the headline will take place quietly and unnoticed by these disparate groups of athletes...
Igor LINNIK
