The European Football Association (UEFA) has been implicated in plans to hold a youth competition in Russia, according to recent reports, and the Ukrainian Association of Football (UAF) has asked UEFA to “clarify” these claims.
The Russian Football Union (RFU) and UEFA have decided to conduct an international youth development event in the city of Volgograd in May of next year, according to sources cited by the Russian media outlet RBK on Thursday.
The UAF shared a letter it sent to Theodore Theodoridis, general secretary of UEFA, asking for an explanation of the reports in the hopes that they were “false.”
We were particularly concerned by the recent news… that Russia will host a football tournament among youth national teams under the auspices of UEFA,” read the message shared on the UAF website.
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“If the statement from the RFU is true, this tournament will be the first international event held in the aggressor country since the beginning of the war in Ukraine,” it further claimed.
The UAF continued by saying that it would view the competition as “a violation of the restrictions that FIFA and UEFA have rightfully imposed on Russia.”
Following a suggestion from the International Olympic Committee, UEFA and world governing body FIFA first declared a suspension on all Russian teams from their events at the end of February (IOC).
Football officials from Russia have so far been unsuccessful in their attempts to have the sanctions lifted; they lost an appeal before the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Switzerland. The RFU has stated that as a following step, it may file the matter with the Swiss Federal Supreme Court.
With a decision perhaps being made before the end of the year, the fines have prompted the RFU to formally examine the possibility of leaving UEFA and joining its Asian equivalent, the AFC.
Any conversations between UEFA and Russian authorities over the present restrictions, according to RBK, are still “unofficial.” However, it noted, the rumoured youth team event for 2019 showed “good momentum.”
