The Russian representative teams were suspended indefinitely by FIFA on Monday. The club sides were removed from all the competitions. Russia won't be participating in the World Cup in November. On the previous day, the use of force by Russia in its invasion of Ukraine was condemned by FIFA.
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This is an unprecedented move by the governing body of the game. Here is a Q&A to better understand the decisions.
Russia was due to play in the men's World Cup playoffs later this month and the women's Euros in July. Is there a way back?
For the men, almost certainly not. The game against Poland was scheduled for March 24. Poland has said they will boycott any match against them unless they reach a peace deal. The draw for the World Cup will take place on April 1 in Doha.
The women's Euros is four months away, a bit different from the men's Euros. It feels like a remote possibility that there will be enough time for the war to end and a resolution to be reached.
Why do you think this is unprecedented? Have countries been suspended from FIFA before?
All the time, FIFA suspends members. Last week, they suspended Zimbabwe and Kenya. It was Chad and Pakistan last year.
Government interference, corruption or financial malfeasance is usually the reason for it. It can happen for a variety of reasons. It is very rare for a nation to be suspended for political reasons. It happened to Yugoslavia in 1992 at the height of the civil war and to South Africa in 1961. There are some key aspects that make this different.
Such as?
The speed of the decision is the first thing. Less than a week ago, the invasion of Ukraine began. In both of the above cases, the United Nations had resolutions. Yugoslavia was sent home after the UN imposed sanctions on Bosnia. They were replaced in the European Championships by the Danes. The U.N. resolution in 1960 called on the government to abandon policies of apartheid and racial discrimination.
There was a UN Security Council resolution condemning the invasion in the past.
How come?
Russia is one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council. The resolution demanding that Russia withdraw from Ukraine was effectively vetoed.
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Why does this matter?
A: Not a political organisation. It is one thing to ban a country for political reasons, but it is another when you have to answer to your members.
While Russia was the only one of the 15 Security Council members to vote against the resolution, three others abstained: India, China and the United Arab Emirates. That is a large chunk of the world's population.
Is that the reason they didn't suspend them on Sunday, instead issuing that somewhat tame statement to simply ban Russian teams from playing on home soil without an anthem or flags?
It was pretty much. It is worth remembering what we are talking about when we talk about FIFA.
It is not as if he made the decision personally, as it can seem at times like a monolith run by an all-powerful president. A fancy way of saying a meeting between Infantino and the presidents of the six confederations was taken by the FIFA Bureau.
Some of the people present wanted to suspend Russia immediately, adding a road map for the return of the country. Others were more cautious.
Why? They didn't have a U.N. resolution to back them up.
These are all elected officials and they answer to their members.
Not everyone felt as strongly about banning Russia as NATO countries do. Some people feel that there is a double standard. When the United States, United Kingdom, Australia and Poland invaded Iraq without the approval of the U.N., they were not banned by FIFA.
They wanted to make sure they had enough support. They probably knew they were going to get it, but they had to go through a process.
What does that mean?
Almost immediately, more member associations came out in support of a ban. Poland will not play against Russia in the World Cup playoffs. So too did Sweden and the Czech Republic, followed by more than a dozen others, which allowed the world governing body to say they had no choice but to exclude Russia or a bunch of other countries.
The International Olympic Committee requested that Russia be banned on Monday. The IOC is a major global organisation. At that point, the bureau was able to proceed from a legal perspective as well.
How do you think so?
Russia can take their case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport. In the past, it has gone against major sporting organizations, like it did when it overturned Manchester City's ban for violating Financial Fair Play.
Russia has a good record. The World Anti-Doping Agency banned Russia for four years for failing to comply with regulations, but the CAS reduced it to two years. At the Winter Olympics last month, it upheld Russia's decision to lift the suspension on figure skater Kamila Valieva. The ban was supposed to be as legally watertight as possible.
Is the ban fair for Russian athletes? They are not the ones who are fighting.
Even though Russia were banned from the Olympics, the athletes were allowed to compete as individuals. The ban is on Russian institutions, not athletes. Russian players who compete in other countries are free to play.
Sports and politics should always be separate. The story goes that when the Olympics were held in ancient Greece, they suspended wars to compete. The line between sports and government propaganda has become blurred.
The Soviet Union boycotted a World Cup playoff game because of human rights violations by the Pinochet government. The IOC refused to kick New Zealand out of the Montreal Olympics because they toured South Africa in violation of a worldwide boycott. The 1980 Moscow Olympics were boycotted by a number of Western countries. The list goes on and on.
I think we have become more comfortable with our sporting institutions taking positions that in the past were deemed as political or taking sides and therefore unacceptable.
In 1968, Tommie Smith and John Carlos were kicked out of the Olympics for raising their black-gloved fists into the Mexico City sky. If we continue to see protests against Russia and solidarity with Ukraine until peace returns, it will be no surprise.
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