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Outrage across the soccer world forced FIFA into finally making the right call on Russia

The global soccer community sent a clear message to FIFA on Sunday: Half-measured responses to Russia’s Ukraine invasion won’t be accepted.

FIFA finally heard that message.

On Monday, FIFA — world soccer’s governing body — and its European counterpart UEFA came to a joint agreement to indefinitely ban Russia from competition in response to the invasion launched in Ukraine last week. It’s a major blow to Russia, which will be forced to forfeit its spot in the UEFA play-off for World Cup qualifying. UEFA will also ban Russian club teams from men’s and women’s competitions, booting Spartak Moscow from the UEFA Europa League.

Both governing bodies released a joint statement on the decision:

Following the initial decisions adopted by the FIFA Council and the UEFA Executive Committee, which envisaged the adoption of additional measures, FIFA and UEFA have today decided together that all Russian teams, whether national representative teams or club teams, shall be suspended from participation in both FIFA and UEFA competitions until further notice.

These decisions were adopted today by the Bureau of the FIFA Council and the Executive Committee of UEFA, respectively the highest decision-making bodies of both institutions on such urgent matters.

Football is fully united here and in full solidarity with all the people affected in Ukraine. Both Presidents hope that the situation in Ukraine will improve significantly and rapidly so that football can again be a vector for unity and peace amongst people.

UEFA also decided to end its sponsorship agreement with Russian energy company, Gazprom.

But let’s not overlook the shamefully slow road FIFA took to arrive at this decision.

How this happened

FIFA, as an organization, holds few redeeming values. That in itself is obvious with the 2022 World Cup being held in Qatar and 2018 being held in Russia — bribery scandals and human right atrocities clouded both competitions.

So, given FIFA president Gianni Infantino’s friendly relationship with Russia and Vladimir Putin, Sunday’s weak response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine wasn’t a surprise as much as it was a disappointment.

On Sunday, FIFA opted to have Russia continue its World Cup qualifying path under the name “Football Union of Russia” and play at neutral sites without fans or anthems. Russia was in a World Cup qualifying play-off with Poland and the winner would face either Sweden or the Czech Republic for one of the final European spots in the World Cup.

That was when Poland, Sweden and the Czech Republic inspired a definitive stand against FIFA’s weak response. All three federations said they would be willing to forfeit and miss the World Cup entirely before they shared a field with Russia — regardless of the name.

The statement of solidarity with Ukraine was profound, especially given how soccer federations financially benefit from reaching the World Cup. It sent the message to the rest of the sports world that they were willing to use any leverage they had to keep Russia off the global stage — even to the detriment of their own soccer federations.

Shortly after the statements from Poland, Sweden and the Czech Republic, England’s FA and France’s FFF joined in with the refusal to play Russia. Just like that, FIFA was looking at the defending World Cup champions threatening a boycott. Other European federations joined in.

As did the United States Soccer Federation.

By Monday, FIFA and UEFA had no choice. Russia had to be gone or the World Cup itself would be in jeopardy. FIFA doesn’t deserve praise for waiting this long.

How fans reacted to the news

The fact that FIFA had to be shamed into making a right decision tells you everything you need to know about FIFA.

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