By Andrew Warshaw
March 29 – A senior executive at the European Club Association (ECA), the body that represents more than 200 clubs across the Continent, says there is no way Russia can be allowed to resume playing competitive matches before Ukraine does.
Poland’s Dariusz Mioduski (pictured), ECA vice-chairman, says his organisation is doing its best to address the current crisis, potentially arranging friendly matches across the Continent with the proceeds partly going to Ukrainian clubs.
Russia has been kicked out of world and European football by FIFA and UEFA whilst Ukrainian football, both domestically and in Europe, has had to be abandoned because of the war.
“I cannot imagine Russian clubs will admitted to play in competitions before Ukraine clubs are able to do so,” Mioduski told a press conference following the ECA general assembly in Vienna. “Until the war stops I can’t imagine there will a change in approach to how Russian clubs are being treated.”
He continued: “We can’t close our eyes to what’s going on. At the ECA we are taking a stand. Ukrainian clubs right now don’t even have a way to train and we are exploring various ways to help those clubs to sustain themselves.”
“We are exploring ways of may be trying to play friendly matches across Europe to raise funds both for the refugees and for the clubs.”
Meanwhile ECA chairman Nassar Al-Khelaifi, the Qatari boss of Paris St Germain, sidestepped a question about the thorny issue of club ownership in the wake of Chelsea’s Russian owner Roman Abramovich being sanctioned by the UK authorities.
PSG are also owned by foreign backers, in their case from the Middle East, but Al-Khaleifi was unwilling to get drawn into the debate.
“I’m not here to talk about PSG or Chelsea,” he said. “We are not in a position to judge. There are a lot of other stakeholders like UEFA, the Premier League and FIFA who are in charge of (things like) this.”
He also declined to further address the concept of a biennial World Cup which is conspicuous by its absence from the agenda at Thursday’s FIFA Congress even though FIFA president Gianni Infantino has refused to abandon the idea and has kept it on the table for negotiation.
Asked if he thought staging the World Cup every two years was now dead in the water, Al-Khaleifi replied: “As you know the ECA is against it, there’s no point even to discuss it.”
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