Sports
Alexei Druzhinin / Itar-Tass / Landov

FIFA unmoved by calls to boycott Russia’s 2018 World Cup

Soccer’s international body does not tolerate political interference, but Moscow is worried about Crimea fallout

Scrambling to find meaningful sanctions that would punish Russia over its Ukraine policy without unduly punishing the rest of Europe, some Western politicians have lately talked up boycotting the 2018 World Cup in Russia. Though chances of a politically motivated stay-away from the tournament are slim, Russian soccer officials are more fearful of the consequences of Moscow’s incorporating Crimea into the Russian Federation.

Britain’s Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg last week called the boycott idea “a very potent political and symbolic sanction,” adding, “If there’s one thing that Vladimir Putin cares about, as far as I can see, it’s his sense of status.” And last week the Spanish newspaper El País reported that the European Commission was considering a boycott of the 2018 World Cup as part of extended sanctions against Russia over the Ukraine crisis.

Speaking on the record, however, Germany — the EU’s most powerful member — struck a different tone. A boycott was not being considered, government spokesman Steffen Seibert said, adding that with the World Cup in Russia still four years away, it was not a question for discussion at this time. A German Foreign Ministry spokesman adopted a similar line.

Former U.K. Sports Minister Richard Caborn also warned on Friday that a boycott of 2018 would be an empty gesture. “The sporting boycott of South Africa worked because there was a total consensus between sports and politicians. But there is not over Russia.” There seems to be little popular consensus either. A Facebook page calling for a boycott of Russia 2018 has 1,246 likes, and a related petition from March gathered 6,019 signatures.

‘The sporting boycott of South Africa worked because there was a total consensus between sports and politicians. But there is not over Russia.’

Richard Caborn

former sports minister, U.K.

FIFA president Sepp Blatter, who announced Monday that he would seek a fifth four-year term as FIFA’s president, poured cold water on the boycott idea.

“There are already some voices coming out about 2018 talking about a boycott,” he said. “A boycott in sport never has had any benefit. Let us wait and see the geopolitical situation, and FIFA shall not intervene with politics. But for the time being, we are working with Russia.”

Soccer authorities in Moscow, however, may be less concerned about politically motivated calls for sanctions from Brussels than they are about the decisions by their government potentially putting the Russian Football Union (RFU) outside FIFA’s rules.

There were barely 1,000 people in Yalta’s Stadion Avanhard on Aug. 12 to watch visitors Sochi beat the home team Zhemchuzhina in the Russian Cup. But that match, together with another the same day between teams from Simferopol and Sevastopol, have set off alarms in the very heart of the RFU over the potential for losing the 2018 World Cup.

Yalta, like Simferopol and Sevastopol, are in Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula unilaterally annexed by Russia from Ukraine last March. The statutes of FIFA’s European affiliate, the UEFA, generally — with a handful of exceptions in the U.K. — bar teams belonging to one recognized national federation from participating in another’s competitions. Although all three clubs were admitted to the RFU in July, the UEFA still recognizes them as belonging to the Ukrainian soccer federation.

An angry letter of complaint from the Ukrainian football federation to the UEFA and FIFA last month demanded that the RFU be punished for incorporating the Crimean teams, raising alarms in Moscow.

‘A boycott in sport never has had any benefit. Let us wait and see the geopolitical situation, and FIFA shall not intervene with politics.’

Sepp Blatter

president, FIFA

The 47,000-seat Spartak stadium is designed to meet FIFA requirements for the 2018 FIFA World Cup.
Maxim Shipenkov / EPA

Russian soccer officials are concerned about the danger of losing the tournament, according to the extraordinary transcript of a meeting of the RFU’s executive committee published by the magazine Novaya Gazeta. The transcript, extracts of which have appeared in The Guardian and The New York Times, paints a picture of Russia’s top soccer officials squirming between Putin’s implacable determination to integrate Crimea into Russian life — including sport — and the prospect of international soccer sanctions, both at club and national team levels.

At one point, the president of the CSKA Moscow, Yevgeny Giner, says, “And tomorrow they’ll pull us from 2018. Why? Because a few wise people here, in the guise of presidents, ask us to put a tick for every for or against. And voilà, sanctions.” Another participant suggested the World Cup might be switched to England, which bid to host the 2018 tournament.

FIFA has foisted responsibility for tacking the Crimea issue onto the UEFA, saying, “the relevant processes that should be overseen by the respective confederation [UEFA] in the first instance.”

A UEFA emergency panel said it would not recognize any matches played by Ukrainian clubs under Russian auspices. However, in a notably evasive statement, it also called on the UEFA’s leadership, together with FIFA, to “facilitate discussions” with the Russian and Ukrainian soccer authorities “in order to find a common solution to this situation.”

Despite the fears of some of Russia’s committeemen, international football authorities do not appear to be going to the barricades over Crimea. Next week the Russian clubs Zenit St. Petersburg and CSKA Moscow (plus Shakhtar Donetsk from eastern Ukraine) are due to play their first UEFA Champions League fixtures of the season, with no indication that their participation is under threat.

While FIFA periodically suspends associations (generally smaller or poorer) in other parts of the world (Nigeria this year, Cameroon last year) for government interference in their running, when Blatter visited Russia last month, discussions focused on “a possible reduction in the number of venues for the 2018 FIFA World Cup, as well as matters linked to the capacity of the arenas.” Crimea was not on the agenda.

The FIFA leadership has shown little inclination to revisit its World Cup hosting decisions, whether in the case of the mass protests in Brazil or the concerns raised abut the weather, labor rights and alleged vote buying in connection with Qatar 2022. It is unlikely that it will take drastic steps in response to what might be seen as the technical issue with the Crimean clubs, when the wider international community has effectively acquiesced to the territory’s annexation. Coincidentally or not, Russia’s World Cup is budgeted to cost $30 billion, which, according to calculations by the University of Zurich, would make it the most costly per spectator seat in history.

In Crimea, SKChF Sevastopol’s cup run came to an end on Aug. 30, when it lost 2-0 to Volgar Astrakhan. But all three Crimean teams are now playing in Russia’s regionalized second division. Absent an overall political settlement, it is unlikely that the Ukrainian and Russian associations will reach an agreement on their status anytime soon. That may not produce an immediate rupture but is likely to remain a simmering source of tension.

The Russian World Cup is nearly four years away, which leaves plenty of time for a political resolution but also for shocks — like the downing of the Malaysian airliner in March — that could dramatically change everyone’s calculations. 

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