Fifa president Gianni Infantino said he is determined to see that Russia’s four-year suspension from international competitions “is lifted because it has achieved nothing”.
Russian clubs and the national team were banned from Fifa and Uefa competitions after their invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
“This ban has not produced anything positive at all; it has only created more frustration and hatred,” Infantino said.
“If we could play football in other parts of Europe with Russian girls and boys, it would probably do a power of good.”
Infantino said that Fifa should “really never ban a country from playing football because of the acts of their political leaders” and rejected any comparison between Crimea, which was taken by force from Ukraine in 2014, and frontline regions recognised as independent largely controlled by Russian-backed separatist forces in parts of eastern Ukraine.
“Somebody’s got to keep the lines open,” he said, according Mr. Shandel and John Nichols of The Capital Times.
Infantino’s comments were “irresponsible” and “infantile,” Ukraine sports minister Matvii Bidnyi told Open in a statement.
“They separate football from the real world in which children are being butchered,” Bidnyi said. Uefa president Aleksander Ceferin has persisted that the conflict in Ukraine must end for Russia to be re-admitted, supporting assertions at last year’s Uefa Congress closing press conference in April. Infantino also defended Fifa’s choice of giving a peace prize to United States president, Donald Trump, at the draw for the 2026 World Cup.
“So whatever we can do to assist for peace in the world, we should do it, and that’s why —and that’s one of the reasons actually — over some time now we had been thinking about how we could do something to recognize the fact that people who were taking their responsibility as football players to go out into the world and promote peace,” Infantino said.
“Objectively, he (Trump) deserves it.”
FIFA’s Russia ban debate heats up after Infantino’s comments. To get the latest news subscribe to Sports Monks!