Ukraine wants to get to the World Cup in Russia to loudly announce a boycott
In Ukraine, a proposal to refuse to participate in the final part of the 2018 FIFA World Cup is being actively discussed, Izvestia reports, citing its own sources.
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“Ukraine wants to refuse to participate in the World Cup. At the same time, the authorities want the national team to successfully pass the qualifying stage and demonstratively boycott the tournament. Ukraine also expects that other countries will be ready to follow their example. This idea is supported at the government level, but the FFU itself is afraid of possible sanctions from FIFA against the national team, so a final decision regarding the boycott of the World Cup has not yet been made,” a high-ranking source in the Football Federation of Ukraine (FFU) told the publication.
The idea of a boycott was also supported in the Verkhovna Rada.
“Today, a number of democratic countries are already considering the option of boycotting the World Cup in Russia,” Ukrainian parliament member Alexander Marchenko told Izvestia. “Even if Ukraine leaves its qualifying group and gets the opportunity to compete in the final part of the tournament, we still must refuse to participate in these competitions.”
At the same time, the vice-president of the Football Federation of Ukraine, Igor Kochetov, avoided a direct answer to the question about the boycott of the World Cup in Russia.
“Today, the task of our national team is to get out of their qualifying group. First, we need to achieve this goal, and only then we will talk about other goals and plans of the Ukrainian national team,” Kochetov said.
In turn, member of the FFU executive committee Artem Frankov admitted that there is a possibility of a boycott of the Ukrainian national team at the 2018 world championship in Russia.
“The topic of boycotting the 2018 World Cup comes up quite often in one way or another, and it is very painful. These calls are not new at all, and they are indeed discussed with varying degrees of intensity. But in order not to look ridiculous, we must first qualify, and only then make a decision about participation or non-participation in the tournament. The situation is quite serious. First of all, we are concerned about the problem of bad relations between Russia and Ukraine and, as a consequence, the problem of security. But there are arguments in favor of the participation of the Ukrainian team in the 2018 world championship. For example, if our team qualifies for the tournament, the Ukrainian anthem will be played at Russian stadiums. We will understand this situation when the issue arises head on,” Frankov noted.
So far, the Ukrainian team is in fourth place in the qualifying group, while only second place allows the team to grab the prospect of a play-off match if it is not possible to qualify directly through first place.
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