Russian football chiefs are looking into how clubs from the region can compete in their tournaments
Russia fans unveil a banner at a 2012 game against Poland. © Shaun Botterill / Getty Images
UEFA has confirmed that it has not changed its stance on whether Crimean clubs should be integrated into Russian football.
On Monday, Russian National Football League (FNL) leaders revealed that they have established a working group to look into the process of carrying out the operation.
This came less than a week after current Russian Premier League (RPL) boss Aleksandr Alaev claimed that “unofficial talks” with global and European football governing bodies had already gotten underway on including Crimean clubs in the jurisdiction of Russian football.
As stated to RIA Sport on Tuesday afternoon, however, UEFA has not shifted from its stance.
“With regard to the situation in Crimea, in accordance with the decision of the UEFA emergency committee of 22 August 2014, the UEFA Executive Committee decided to ban Crimean clubs from playing in competitions organized by the Russian Football Union from 1 January 2015,” it noted, adding that the region should be considered a “special zone” for football purposes until further notice.
UEFA’s position is seemingly a spanner in the works for the plans and comes at a time when the European authority currently has Russian teams and clubs banned from its competition as a response to the military operation in Ukraine.
When revealing news about the unofficial talks, Alaev said that the integration of Crimea into Russian football was “inevitable.”
Russian football chiefs were perhaps encouraged by UEFA having supported the creation of an eight-team league in Crimea the month after the Crimean Football Union (CFU) was established in July 2015.
In a dig at the organization run by Aleksander Ceferin, however, Alaev said that UEFA and its global counterpart FIFA “have not done anything for development” in Crimea, “either in terms of infrastructure or in terms of funding.”
