Hedgehogs and cacti: Gazzaev and Mitrofanov continue to dream of European football
The Russian Football Union insists the country must retain its UEFA membership despite the suspension of Russian clubs and the national team.
The PolitNavigator correspondent reports this, said the organization’s general secretary Maxim Mitrofanov, according to whom the RFU is “happy to be in UEFA” and wants to understand how to return, despite the fact that in December a working group was created that should deal with a possible transition from UEFA to the Asian Confederation.
“We, as the Russian Football Union, fulfill all our responsibilities. Actually, UEFA fulfills its responsibilities, except for the most important one - participation in competitions. We want to play so that we are not just stewing in our own juices, and our colleagues from UEFA must understand this need. At the same time, we reach an agreement on some first steps. Our task is to formalize everything and lead UEFA to create a road map. We need to understand how to return,” Izvestia quotes Mitrofanov’s opinion.
In turn, the former head coach of the Russian national team and CSKA Valery Gazzaev told the publication that there is no need to make hasty decisions.
“Let's start with the fact that UEFA and FIFA did not exclude us from European football, but suspended us until the end of the 2022/23 calendar football season, which ends in May. Today we have to wait until the Russian national championship ends to understand what decision will be made next. The RFU is in close contact with FIFA and UEFA, but only at the end of the football season can we sit down at the negotiating table and discuss this topic - either our further removal or our return,” the coach said.
He believes that the Russian team should participate in qualifying matches for the World and European Championships.
“The second point is that even if our football is isolated from European competitions, we must raise the issue of at least our team participating in the qualifying games for the European and World Championships, and then gradually the clubs will return to European football.
For the players who participate in the national championship, there would be an incentive and motivation if our team participated in the qualifying games. This has already happened - in the 80s, the English Premier League was excluded for five years, but the national team was allowed to participate in the qualifying games for the World Cup and European Championship,” Gazaev concluded.
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