Russia has also appealed against FIFA’s ban, with the hearing expected to take place later this week.
The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) has upheld the ban on Russian football teams appearing in Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) competitions on Tuesday.
However, this is an ‘urgent ruling’ and does not apply to Russia’s desperate chance to be reinstated for the FIFA World Cup qualifiers. It is only applied to the Russian soccer federation’s legal action against UEFA.
No detailed reasons have been released regarding the verdict, which was pronounced by a single-judge panel of the President of the Appeals Arbitration division CAS, Corinne Schmidhauser. The full appeal case is expected to be decided by a panel of three judges.
The team will get clarity on their status after a separate ruling on Russia’s World Cup status, which is set to take place later this week, according to AP.
Previously, FIFA stated that Russia will be allowed to continue playing under the ‘Football Union of Russia’ name and without the Russian flag or national anthem at international matches.
However, the decision was slammed by several sports activists and players, stating that such action is simply ‘not enough’ compared to the crimes the country is committing.
As a response, FIFA then released a joint statement with UEFA announcing that the Russian national teams and clubs are banned from all competitions. The European nation then appealed both bans, but CAS later denied its UEFA appeal.
Though the FIFA ban appeal hearing is yet to take place, the recent March 15 verdict provides an insight on how CAS might act in a similar FIFA case.
Russia’s Sporting Bans
Poland was scheduled to play against Russia on 24 March in the 2022 World Cup playoffs. However, the nation has refused to play against Russia after it launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, stating that it cannot turn a blind eye to war crimes.
The Swedish, English, and Czech Republic national teams have also boycotted any games against Russia in protest of the recent escalations.
FIFA’s decision to suspend Russia means that they will not be participating in the major sporting event in Qatar in 2022. However, it is still unclear whether the verdict will allow the team to participate in the meantime or the ban will be withheld.
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