On February 28, both Fifa and UEFA announced that they were suspending Russian teams from their various competitions, due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Therefore, Russia was not allowed to complete the World Cup qualification, and therefore there are now no Russian teams in Uefa competitions such as the Champions League and Europa League.
Working group has been formed
The Russian Football Federation (RFU) wants to change this.
Today their executive committee had a meeting, where the topic was how they will be allowed to return to international competitions.
After the meeting, a press conference was held, where the association's chairman, Alexander Djukov, announced that the association is not - as had been speculated - breaking away from Uefa to join the Asian Football Confederation (AFC).
Instead, they will remain in Uefa, at least temporarily.
Namely, they have formed a working group with Uefa, which will also include representatives from the International Football Association (FIFA) and the International Olympic Committee (IOC).
- The purpose of the working group is to analyze and develop proposals and measures for clubs and national teams to be able to return to official competitions, explained Djukov, who, however, opens the possibility that the RFU may still leave the European confederation for the Asian confederation in the future:
- Our goal is to ensure that our clubs and national teams can return to official competitions.
We will work towards returning to UEFA competitions as soon as possible.
If we understand that it is impossible, then we will work to change the conference to the AFC.
The most important thing is to find solutions that allow our clubs and teams to return to competition as soon as possible.
- One of our main goals is to participate in the WC 2026.