The Court of Arbitration For Sport (CAS) has denied the Football Union of Russia’s request for the country’s teams and clubs to stay in UEFA competitions.
For the duration of the CAS proceedings, the execution of the UEFA Executive Committee’s decision will remain in force and all Russian sports clubs will continue to be suspended from participation.
As the arbitration proceedings continue, the parties have stated that they did not agree to an expedited procedure and a hearing has not yet been fixed.
The CAS wrote in a release: “In the arbitration proceedings brought by the FUR against the FIFA Council’s decisions: 1. To suspend all Russian teams and clubs from participation in its competitions until further notice.
“And 2. To give a “bye” to the team of Poland to the final of “Path B” of the European play-offs for the 2022 FIFA World Cup, due to take place on 29 March 2022, the CAS decisions on the FUR’s requests to stay the execution of the FIFA decisions for the duration of the CAS proceedings are likely to be issued at the end of this week.”
At the start of the month, Russia’s Football Union stated that it would file a lawsuit against the governing body to demand that its men’s and women’s national teams should be allowed to play. This would include qualifying for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.
Initially, FIFA stated that Russia would be able to continue to compete under the name of ‘Football Union or Russia’, but without its flag or anthem. However, the governing body then announced, along with UEFA, that such teams are to be banned from all tournaments.
UEFA and FIFA added: “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.”
In a further retaliation of the continuing conflict between Russia and Ukraine, UEFA also recently announced that the Champions League final is now set to be moved from St Petersburg to Paris.
The governing bodies concluded: “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.”