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      A Biennial World Cup Is Dead, but FIFA’s Fight Isn’t Over

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      FIFA has quietly given up on a plan to hold the World Cup every two years. But surrender may not mean peace for its president, Gianni Infantino.DOHA, Qatar — Gianni Infantino strode into the bright lights of a packed convention center alongside the emir of Qatar on Friday and declared that he expected this year’s World Cup to be the best ever. It was not an unusual boast; Infantino has made it before, in Russia in 2018, and he will surely make it again when the tournament heads to North America in 2026. But behind his beaming smile, and his bombastic words, the trip to the desert had been the setting for the FIFA president’s latest disappointment.It was here where yet another of Infantino’s hopes for revolutionary change, the kind of bold but ultimately failed plan that has marked his presidency of soccer’s global governing body, finally came to an end. The divisive efforts to double the frequency of the men’s World Cup, to milk FIFA’s multibillion-dollar cash cow every two years instead of every four, are over.While Infantino reminded FIFA’s members, gathered together in person for the first time in three years, that the idea of a biennial World Cup had not been his — a claim that was technically accurate — he had spent a significant amount of financial and political capital to try to engineer what would have amounted to one of the most significant changes in soccer history. Polls were commissioned to showcase support. Experts were enlisted to push back against critics. But the concept’s opponents never wavered: By last fall, European and South American soccer leaders were already threatening a boycott if it came to fruition.In Doha, Infantino finally raised the white flag.The reversal, yet another capitulation on yet another of his grand ideas, followed earlier blunders that have led to damaging rifts with important constituencies. In 2018, Infantino tried to force through a $25 billion deal with the Japanese conglomerate SoftBank to sell some of FIFA’s top assets and create new club and national team competitions, provoking a fight so bitter that he and the leader of European soccer did not speak for a year.In 2019, FIFA used back-channel efforts to try to expand this year’s World Cup to 48 teams from its planned 32. The proposal was abandoned because it would have required the host, Qatar, to share games with its neighbors, including a group that was then engaged in a prolonged economic blockade of the tiny Gulf nation.A Guide to the 2022 World CupThe 32-team tournament kicks off in Qatar on Nov. 21.F.A.Q.: When will the games take place? Who are the favorites? Will Lionel Messi be there? Our primer answers your questions.The Matchups: The group assignments are set. Here’s a breakdown of the draw and a look at how each country qualified.U.S. Returns: Five years after a calamitous night cost the U.S. a World Cup bid, a new generation claimed a berth in the 2022 tournament.The Host: After a decade of scrutiny and criticism, there is a sense that Qatar will at last get the payoff it always expected for hosting the World Cup.Last week, Infantino, 52, could not quite bring himself to say explicitly that the biennial World Cup, the source of so much acrimony over the past year, was not going to happen. Instead, he allowed only that it was now time to “find agreements and compromises.”Infantino, with the emir of Qatar on Friday, predicted this year’s World Cup would be the best edition of the event ever.Kai Pfaffenbach/ReutersFIFA, he told delegates, needed new competitions, the kind that would produces the type of revenues needed to fulfill the promises FIFA has made to its 211 member federations. No FIFA president has been generous as Infantino, and for him follow-through is suddenly vital: He announced on Thursday that he would stand for re-election next year.Plans for future events are already taking shape. Annual competitions for boys and girls are planned, with a 48-team youth event for boys and 24-team girls competition unlikely to face any opposition. And opposition to an expanded Club World Cup to be played every four years — another Infantino priority — is now surprisingly muted. A 24-team Club World Cup had been awarded to China for 2021 but was scrapped because of the coronavirus pandemic and then sidelined altogether as Infantino focused his energies on the biennial World Cup.Now, with even once-reticent European officials engaging in positive talks, the Club World Cup — potentially expanded even more, to 32 teams — is likely to be agreed upon in the next few months. The new event could begin as soon as 2025. Or it could be delayed until 2027 should FIFA, in the face of resilient European opposition, find an alternative national team competition to the biennial World Cup. Some regional bodies, including Concacaf, the group responsible for soccer in North and Central America, are still pushing for a major new national-team competition.“I think the appetite is there for change, and I think the rest of the world really wants change,” said the Concacaf president, Victor Montagliani.Montagliani suggested a revived and expanded version of the mothballed Confederations Cup, a largely unpopular tournament held in World Cup host countries as a test event, might be an option, as could a global Nations League that could feed into a new quadrennial event for its regional winners — an idea some Europeans ridiculed as a biennial World Cup “by the back door.”At the heart of much of the tension, though, remains a bigger fight: the battle for supremacy between European soccer and FIFA. European officials have been angered by what they perceive as efforts by Infantino, a former UEFA general secretary, to diminish Europe in an effort to bolster his popularity around the world, and signs of their rift were clear in Qatar last week. Several members of UEFA’s delegation, for example, including its president, Aleksander Ceferin, were notable by their absence at Friday’s World Cup draw, an event that took place only a day after they had taken part in the FIFA Congress.Infantino has talked openly about breaking Europe’s stranglehold on success — FIFA last year appeared to encourage efforts to found a breakaway European Super League before walking away from the project as it collapsed — and he retains important allies who share his concerns about its dominance.“What are the rest of us supposed to do? Just twiddle our thumbs and send players and capital over to Europe?” said Montagliani, a Canadian. “That can’t happen. I’m sorry. The reality is, they have as much of a fiduciary duty in terms of the rest of the world, and I think it is time that we all get around the table and figure that out.”The now-doomed biennial World Cup campaign saw Infantino bring other allies into the fight, including leveraging popular former players and coaches to press the issue on his behalf. The efforts were led by Arsène Wenger, the former Arsenal coach, who toured the world espousing the benefits of the competition, and members of the FIFA Legends program, a FIFA-funded group of former international stars, who also offered glowing reviews. (Current players were by and large opposed to the idea.)At the same time, opinion polls and surveys and public relations consultants were tasked with changing minds of a skeptical news media and wary fan groups. In the end, though, the effort produced only disruption and discord. And it does not appear to have been cheap: FIFA last week reported a spike in its communications costs in its latest financial disclosure. They rose by almost $10 million — 62 percent — compared with the previous year.Now, as he pushes ahead and makes promises for his re-election, some are waiting for, even expecting, Infantino’s next big idea, one that could deliver cash to his constituents and also the legacy as a change-maker that he craves. More

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      World Cup 2022 Group Assignments Full List

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      Regional and historic rivalries were renewed on Friday as the draw for the 2022 World Cup set out the paths for 32 teams hoping to claim soccer’s biggest championship. The tournament won’t start until November, but for a few teams it might have already been lost: There is only so much luck of the draw to go around, after all.The United States, back in the field after missing Russia 2018, landed in a group with England, a finalist at last summer’s European Championship; Iran, a geopolitical (and soccer) rival; and a European team still to be determined. That will happen in June, when the final European place will be decided by games involving Ukraine, Scotland or Wales.Each team plays the other three countries in its group once, and the top two finishers from each group advance to the knockout stages.The #FIFAWorldCup groups are set 🤩 We can’t wait! 🏆#FinalDraw pic.twitter.com/uaDfdIvbaZ— FIFA World Cup (@FIFAWorldCup) April 1, 2022
      Here is the full list of groups:Group A: Qatar, Ecuador, Senegal, NetherlandsGroup B: England, Iran, United States, (Wales or Scotland or Ukraine)Group C: Argentina, Saudi Arabia, Mexico, PolandGroup D: France, (U.A.E. or Australia or Peru), Denmark, TunisiaGroup E: Spain, (Costa Rica or New Zealand), Germany, JapanGroup F: Belgium, Canada, Morocco, CroatiaGroup G: Brazil, Serbia, Switzerland, CameroonGroup H: Portugal, Ghana, Uruguay, South Korea More

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      World Cup Draw Time, TV and Rules

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      The hard work of qualifying is over. Now the teams headed to Qatar later this year will learn their opponents.The World Cup field is almost complete. On Friday, soccer teams will learn the answer to the critical question they and their fans want to know: Who will they play when the tournament opens in November in Qatar?The World Cup draw — part gala, part pep rally, part math seminar — will deliver intriguing clashes of styles, testy political collisions and, if past events are any guide, a few uncomfortable moments.But given the stakes of the draw, it is also one of the biggest events on the global sports calendar. Here is a look at how it works.When and where is the draw?Friday at noon, Eastern time, at the Doha Exhibition and Convention Center in Qatar.How can I watch?Television coverage in the United States will be on FS1 and Telemundo starting at 11:30 a.m., Eastern time. The draw will be streamed at FIFA.com and on NBC’s Peacock service in the United States. The New York Times will also provide minute-by-minute coverage.How does it work?Each team has been assigned to one of four pots, based on its world ranking. One team from each pot will be placed in each of the eight World Cup opening round groups, to ensure the teams are divided by strength. There are also rules to keep them apart from regional rivals. Each group may have no more than two teams from Europe, for example, and no more than one from any other continent.The entire process can feel a bit methodical at times: First, a ball is pulled from one of the bowls containing the names of each team in that pot. Then a second ball is drawn to place the team in its position, which must be done carefully to ensure that rules about regional rivalries are followed.It can go badly wrong, as the Champions League learned in December. It had announced its highly anticipated knockout-round matchups before discovering its mistake, and had to stage an embarrassing do over.Who will actually draw the teams?Soccer luminaries including Cafu (Brazil), Lothar Matthäus (Germany), Adel Ahmed Malalla (Qatar), Ali Daei (Iran), Bora Milutinovic (Serbia), Jay-Jay Okocha (Nigeria), Rabah Madjer (Algeria) and Tim Cahill (Australia) will do the actual drawing of the balls out of the bowls.Who’s in Pot 1?Since the teams are ordered by their world ranking, Pot 1 traditionally contains the tournament favorites as well as the host nation. That means, in addition to Qatar, this year the pot includes Brazil, Argentina, Belgium, France, England, Spain and Portugal.What about the other three pots?Pot 2 consists of the United States, Mexico, the Netherlands, Denmark, Germany, Switzerland, Croatia and Uruguay.Pot 3 is Serbia, Poland, Senegal, Morocco, Tunisia, Iran, Japan and South Korea.Pot 4, nominally the weakest teams (though perhaps not this year), holds Canada, Ghana, Cameroon, Ecuador and Saudi Arabia.Three teams that have not yet been determined will also be in that pot. A European spot will be taken by Ukraine, Scotland or Wales. Another spot will go to the winner of an intercontinental playoff between Costa Rica and New Zealand, and the last to one of Peru, Australia or the United Arab Emirates. All of those places will be decided by games in June.Who’s missing?The chief absentee is Italy, a four-time World Cup winner and the reigning European champion. After missing out in 2018, Italy was eliminated for the second straight cycle when it lost a playoff semifinal against North Macedonia.Whom will teams want to draw or avoid?Qatar, which has never qualified for the World Cup on sporting merit, is by far the weakest team in Pot 1, and every team in the other pots will be eager to land in its group. No one will especially want to play Brazil, because it is No. 1 in the world and because, hey, it’s Brazil. France is the defending champion.Germany and the Netherlands look to be the strongest teams in Pot 2, and Serbia and Poland (with the FIFA world player of the year Robert Lewandowski) could be dangerous from Pot 3. Any team that can qualify from South America is going to be strong, and Ecuador in Pot 4 should frighten many teams ranked above it.The same goes for Canada, which has a host of young talent and breezed to first place in its qualifying group ahead of the more traditional powers the United States and Mexico.Who is going to win the World Cup?The favorites are Brazil, France, England and Spain, in that order, bookmakers say. More

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      Soccer’s Richest Clubs Sidestep UEFA Salary Cap in New Cost Controls

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      UEFA’s new financial regulations will tie spending to club revenues, entrenching the advantages wealthy clubs already enjoy in the market for talent.The biggest reforms of European soccer’s financial controls in a generation will stop short of creating U.S.-style salary caps to restrain teams’ spending, and instead will enact rules that are unlikely to stop the continent’s richest clubs from buying up the best talent and winning the most coveted trophies.UEFA, European soccer’s governing body, has spent more than a year in talks with a representative group for elite clubs about a new model to replace its so-called financial fair play rules, the cost-control mechanism that has for a decade sought to limit team expenditures as part of an effort to promote competition.UEFA has finally alighted on a replacement. Teams’ soccer-related spending, according to people briefed on the regulations, will not be able to surpass 70 percent of their income, a regulation that appears watered down from the strict salary cap that had long been championed by UEFA’s president, Aleksander Ceferin.Ceferin had for at least five years discussed imposing salary caps as a way to address European soccer’s growing wealth gap. But faced with the complexities of European employment law and deep-pocketed opposition, UEFA has abandoned the concept of a hard cap and, according to three people familiar with the proposals, settled on a proposal that — after a three-year implementation period — will require teams to keep their spending within a strict ratio.The rules will be added to UEFA’s rule book after a vote of its executive board on April 7. They will also be renamed, with UEFA looking to move away from F.F.P., or financial fair play, a term coined under Ceferin’s predecessor, and instead adopt a more prosaic title: financial sustainability regulations.In more than a decade of use, the current financial fair play system has proved more adept at producing critics than fairness. Smaller teams complained that they were punished for rule breaches while bigger, wealthier teams were often able to avoid the most severe penalties. The biggest and richest clubs, meanwhile, objected to the financial controls as an unfair curb on their ambitions.Talks about changing the regulations accelerated during the coronavirus pandemic, when shuttered stadiums and rebates to television broadcasters caused financial unease for teams big and small. UEFA reported in February that an estimated 7 billion euros (about $7.7 billion) had been collectively wiped off clubs’ balance sheets during the pandemic.Despite their lofty nod to sustainability, the rules changes may in fact entrench the growing hegemony of wealthy English teams, which benefit not only from the highest domestic television revenues in global soccer but also access to the wealth of some of the richest owners in sports. In last season’s Champions League, two English teams met in the final for the second time in three years.The move to bring soccer-related costs like wages and transfer fees into a tight ratio will be a challenge for many major teams outside England, the vast majority of which have struggled to maintain fiscal discipline as they tried to keep up with rivals who play in the Premier League.In Italy, for example, wage costs alone often exceed the ratios being proposed by UEFA. In Spain, which has some of the strictest financial rules in soccer, the powerhouse team Barcelona was unable to retain the star player Lionel Messi last year because doing so would have breached a cap imposed on the team by the league.Discussions about the ratio UEFA should impose on clubs were complicated by conflicting interests. Some teams, particularly those backed by wealthy owners used to pumping their own cash into buying success for their teams, had wanted the limit to be as high as 85 percent. Others, including several German clubs, whose balance sheets are typically kept under control by a system in which members retain a majority stake in ownership, argued for an even lower limit.To allow the teams to adjust to the new regulations, the new rules will be imposed over time: Clubs will be able to spend up to 90 percent of their revenues before that figure will be brought to its permanent 70 percent level within three seasons. According to the proposed rules, teams may under certain circumstances be allowed the flexibility to spend up to about $10 million above the ratio, provided they have healthy balance sheets and have not breached regulations before.UEFA’s critics have long complained that while they have had cost-control rules in place, they have often failed to punish the biggest teams. In recent years, Manchester City and Paris St.-Germain — teams bankrolled by wealthy Gulf States — have been able to avoid severe penalties on technical grounds.There has also been little clarity around the current punishment mechanism, and concerns about UEFA’s appetite to take on the hardest cases. Several longstanding members of the panels overseeing the financial rules have either been replaced or walked out in recent years. Sunil Gulati, the former U.S. Soccer president, last year was named chairman of UEFA’s revamped financial control panel.Under the new system, UEFA will have the right to impose both sporting and financial penalties for rule breakers, including fines, threat of expulsion and, for the first time, an option for demoting teams between the three competitions it currently operates. A team in the Champions League, for example, could be relegated to the second-tier Europa League for a financial rules breach.Another measure may also include point deductions under the revised format of the Champions League and the Europa League: Starting in 2024 all participants will be placed in a single league table during the first phase of the competition. And the regulations also will require greater scrutiny of sponsorship deals amid claims that some teams have benefited from inflated agreements with companies linked to their ownership groups.UEFA is talking about the proposals with several clubs that are already on performance plans because of their poor financial records. Those teams, as many as 40, made so-called settlement agreements with the governing body in order to keep participating in their tournaments. More

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      Poland Refused to Play Russia Once. It May Have to Do So Again.

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      Poland’s stars cornered FIFA by threatening to boycott a World Cup qualifier. Now, as Russia appeals the decision, Robert Lewandowski, Wojciech Szczesny and their teammates may have to double down.One by one, late on a Friday evening, Robert Lewandowski called his Poland teammates. They were scattered across Europe, and most of them were busily preparing for club games that weekend, but his question could not wait.They had all seen the footage emerging from Ukraine: Russian tanks rolling across the border, Russian artillery bombarding cities and towns, Ukrainian refugees flooding out of the country, hundreds of thousands of them seeking shelter in Poland.In a matter of weeks, Poland was scheduled to face Russia in a crucial World Cup qualifier. Lewandowski had known immediately, once the invasion of Ukraine had begun, that he did not want the game in late March to go ahead. He had already called the president of the Polish soccer federation and made that clear. Now he wanted to know how his teammates felt.Without exception, the answer was emphatic. Lewandowski did not, he said in an interview, “have to convince anyone.” The conversation he had with Wojciech Szczesny, the Juventus goalkeeper who has been one of Lewandowski’s Poland teammates for more than a decade, was typical. “I just said, ‘I’m not playing the game,’” Szczesny said. “That was how he felt, too. We all said the same thing.”After finishing his calls late on that February night, Lewandowski — the Poland captain and, by some distance, his country’s most high-profile athlete — relayed his conversations to executives at the federation. The players, he said, were unanimous: They would not take the field against Russia. It did not matter if the game was held on neutral territory or if Russia played it under a neutral flag.It did not even matter to them if Poland was thrown out of the World Cup as a result. “We didn’t think about the consequences or whether we might be punished,” Szczesny said. “We only cared about the outcome. We were prepared to forfeit the game. We were not going to play.”The federation readily acceded to the players’ decision. They told Lewandowski they would relay a message to FIFA, world soccer’s governing body, the next morning to inform the organization of the Polish position. “We said that on Saturday we would announce there would be no games at all with Russia,” Jakub Kwiatkowski, the general manager of the Polish men’s national team, told the BBC.Lewandowski said Poland’s players were united in their refusal to play Russia.Albert Gea/ReutersThe move seemed to force FIFA’s hand. The organization had, for much of the first week of the invasion, been studiously quiet on the subject of whether Russia — or any of its club teams — would be allowed to continue to play either in World Cup qualifying or in competitions under the auspices of UEFA, European soccer’s governing body.The Polish authorities had been trying for several days to force FIFA to commit to a position. They had already sent the governing body two letters: one in which it confirmed that Poland would refuse to play games in Russia, and one in which Sweden and the Czech Republic — the two other teams that stand in Poland’s way of a place at the World Cup this winter — joined its boycott. “There was no reaction,” Kwiatkowski said.It took several more days for FIFA to respond at all, and when it did so it “did not go far enough,” Szczesny said. FIFA’s initial punishment prevented Russia only from playing on home soil, and under its own flag. Other than that, it would be free to compete. “It didn’t go down very well with the players,” Szczesny said. “It was not enough.”FIFA’s position changed quickly once the vehemence of the Polish players’ opposition became clear. “We sent them a statement that was very clear,” Kwiatkowski said. “We will not play Russia at all, regardless of the name they play under or where the venue might be.” By the next Monday, Feb. 28, FIFA had reversed course completely. Russia and Russian clubs, it declared, would no longer be able to play in its competitions, or in UEFA events. A subsequent ruling would decree that foreign players on Russian teams would be allowed to break their contracts and complete the season elsewhere.Russia-Ukraine War: Key Things to KnowCard 1 of 4In the city of Mariupol. More

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      FIFA Will Allow Foreign Players in Russia to Break Contracts

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      The move is expected to be temporary, and less than player advocates had demanded, in hopes of not setting a precedent.Having decided that Russian teams cannot play international soccer for an indefinite period because of the country’s invasion of Ukraine, soccer’s governing body is now planning to announce that foreign players contracted by Russian teams can suspend their contracts and move elsewhere — at least temporarily.The decision will affect about 100 players, who will be able to set aside their Russian contracts and sign with new clubs through to June 30. The measure stops short of what groups representing players and worldwide leagues had requested. In a joint letter, reviewed by The New York Times, FIFPro, the largest players union, and the World Leagues Forum, an umbrella organization for more than 40 competitions, had asked FIFA, soccer’s global governing body, that athletes be allowed to leave Russia permanently.The request has created an awkward situation for FIFA. The organization had broken precedent when it moved to punish Russia for its actions in Ukraine — including barring Russia’s national team from qualifying matches for this year’s World Cup — but allowing players to break their contracts, especially outside of soccer’s traditional winter and summer windows, was potentially far more problematic.Talks over the weekend between the player groups and FIFA, which also included lawyers for European soccer’s governing body, UEFA, and club representatives, failed to reach a consensus, with officials said to be concerned about setting a precedent. Instead, FIFA has decided that players who want to leave Russian teams can do so but must return after June 30.An official statement is likely to come as soon as Monday. In their letter, FIFPro and the leagues group suggested that some players were no longer comfortable playing for Russian teams after the invasion of Ukraine.“These foreign players may rightfully consider that they are not willing to represent any longer a Russian team and should be able to immediately terminate their contract with their employer without facing any sanction whatsoever from international bodies and to be registered in a new club without being restricted by transfer period regulations,” the letter said.Under local rules, Russian clubs can have as many as eight foreign players, known as legionnaires, on their rosters. The current Russian champion, Zenit St. Petersburg, has five Brazilians, a Colombian, a Croatian and a player from Kazakhstan on its squad.At least one club, Krasnodar, announced last week that it would allow its foreign players and coaching staff to suspend their contracts. Its German coach, Daniel Farke, the former manager of the English Premier League club Norwich, quit less than two months into his contract without overseeing a single game. But foreign players continued to suit up for Russian teams in the most recent round of domestic league games over the weekend.Russia’s declaration of war has exposed gaps in the statutes under which sporting organizations like FIFA are organized. After the invasion began, and drew worldwide condemnation, FIFA lawyers and officials scrambled to find a way to take action that could be justified under its regulations. At first, officials proposed measures that stopped short of an outright ban: Russia was to be prohibited from playing on home soil and barred from using its flag and even its name. But that punishment unraveled within 24 hours when Russia’s opponents — and about a dozen other countries — announced that they would refuse to share a field with Russia wherever, and whenever, games were to be played.A day later, FIFA threw Russia’s teams and its clubs out of world soccer. But its lawyers are already bracing for a fight over the decision. Russia’s soccer federation has called for an expedited hearing at the Court of Arbitration for Sport in order for a decision to be made before March 24, the date when it was supposed to host Poland in a World Cup qualification playoff.Russia-Ukraine War: Key Things to KnowCard 1 of 3Evacuation efforts under attack. More

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      FIFA Will Ban Russia, Ejecting It From World Cup Qualifying

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      World soccer’s global governing body suspended Russia and its teams from all competitions on Monday, ejecting the country from qualifying for the 2022 World Cup only weeks before it was to play for one of Europe’s final places in this year’s tournament in Qatar.The suspension, which was announced Monday evening in coordination with European soccer’s governing body, also barred Russian club teams from international competitions. The decision came a day after FIFA was heavily criticized for not going far enough in punishing Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, and amid mounting demands from national federations for stronger action.The initial pressure for an outright ban of Russia came from soccer officials in Poland, Sweden and the Czech Republic, whose national team faced the prospect of games against Russia in a World Cup playoff in March. Other countries and officials, including the federations representing France, England and the United States, quickly said they would not play Russia under any circumstances.England 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿, Albania 🇦🇱, Czech Republic 🇨🇿, Denmark 🇩🇰, Ireland 🇮🇪, Norway 🇳🇴, Scotland 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿, Switzerland 🇨🇭, Sweden 🇸🇪, Wales 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿… football Europe follows the Polish path. Together we are stronger! #SolidarityWithUkraine 🇺🇦Dziękujemy! | Thank you!— Cezary Kulesza (@Czarek_Kulesza) February 28, 2022
      FIFA and its European counterpart, UEFA, said the ban on Russia would be in place “until further notice.”“Football is fully united here and in full solidarity with all the people affected in Ukraine,” FIFA said in a statement. Ukraine’s team, which is set to play Scotland in its own World Cup playoff in March, will remain in the competition.UEFA then went a step further in breaking its deep ties to Russia: It announced that it had ended a sponsorship agreement with the Russian energy giant Gazprom. The deal was worth a reported $50 million a year to European soccer.UEFA had last week stripped St. Petersburg, the home of Gazprom, of this year’s Champions League final. The game will be played in France instead.Ukraine will take part in the playoffs for the final European World Cup places next month. Russia, now, will not.Fehim Demir/EPA, via ShutterstockFIFA and UEFA decided to bar Russia only hours after the International Olympic Committee called for international sports federations to prohibit Russian athletes and teams from all global sporting events where possible. The Olympic officials said Russia had breached a commitment — known as the Olympic Truce, and signed before the start of the Beijing Winter Games and scheduled to run through the Paralympics that open this week — when it invaded Ukraine.The immediate consequence of soccer’s ban on Russia is that it will lose its place in a four-team group for one of Europe’s final places for the World Cup. Poland, which was scheduled to play Russia in March in Moscow, had said flatly that it would refuse to take the field for the game, a stance it repeated after FIFA announced its initial slate of penalties on Sunday night.Cezary Kulesza, the president of Poland’s soccer federation, called FIFA’s initial decision not to eject Russia “totally unacceptable.” In a post on Twitter, he added: “We are not interested in participating in this game of appearances. Our stance remains intact: Polish National Team will NOT PLAY with Russia, no matter what the name of the team is.”Sweden and the Czech Republic, the teams that could have met Russia — also in Moscow — if the Russians beat Poland, said that they, too, would refuse to play, even at a neutral site.Russia-Ukraine War: Key Things to KnowCard 1 of 4On the ground. More

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      FIFA Proposes Penalties for Russia but No Ban, Yet

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      The restrictions proposed by soccer’s governing body for a World Cup playoff next month stopped short of the all-out ban Russia’s opponents have demanded.Under mounting pressure to take action against Russia after its invasion of Ukraine, the leadership of world soccer’s governing body on Sunday agreed on a range of measures that would take effect for Russia’s crucial World Cup qualifying playoff next month. But the proposals — a ban on Russia’s name, flag and anthem and a neutral site for its games — do not include the all-out ban on Russia’s national team that its opponents are demanding, making it unclear if the punishments will resolve the confrontation, or if the games will be played at all.Russia was drawn against Poland in March as part of a four-team group for one of Europe’s final places in the World Cup in Qatar later this year. If Russia were to win its game against Poland, it would meet Sweden or the Czech Republic for a place in Qatar when the tournament opens in November. Russia’s first playoff match and the potential second game had been scheduled to be played in Moscow.Bureau of the FIFA Council takes initial measures with regard to war in Ukraine ▶️ https://t.co/JoHzwIajiX pic.twitter.com/BarqeIDYaP— FIFA Media (@fifamedia) February 27, 2022
      The three other countries involved in the battle for the World Cup place — Poland, Sweden and the Czech Republic — have all refused to play Russia under any circumstances as a protest against Russia’s invasion of neighboring Ukraine.Several top players, including Poland’s Robert Lewandowski, FIFA’s reigning world player of the year, have backed the decision to boycott any games involving Russia. Those statements, and similar ones by other players, have created intense pressure on FIFA to remove Russia from the competition.Other soccer bodies have already taken action against Russia: European soccer’s governing body last week stripped St. Petersburg of this year’s Champions League final, and on Sunday England’s soccer federation said it would not play Russia in any international games for the foreseeable future “out of solidarity with Ukraine and to wholeheartedly condemn the atrocities being committed by the Russian leadership.”Earlier Sunday, a group of FIFA top leaders sought to find a way out of the simmering confrontation by agreeing to penalize Russia: It ordered that its team would be allowed to play only in neutral venues and in empty stadiums; that it must play without its flag or national anthem, and only if its team agreed to be known as the Football Union of Russia, rather than Russia.Cezary Kulesza, the president of Poland’s soccer federation, called FIFA’s decision “totally unacceptable.” In a post on Twitter, he added: “We are not interested in participating in this game of appearances. Our stance remains intact: Polish National Team will NOT PLAY with Russia, no matter what the name of the team is.”Karl-Erik Nilsson, the president of Sweden’s soccer federation, also said it would not play Russia, and urged FIFA to cancel the playoff matches in March involving the country.FIFA’s measures are only the first step in actions against the country’s soccer teams, said three senior soccer officials familiar with the organization’s discussions, and a harsher penalty — most likely an all-out ban on Russian teams — could be imposed if Russia’s attacks on Ukraine continue, or if it refuses to abide by Sunday’s penalties.The measures mirror some of the penalties imposed against Russian teams by the International Olympic Committee after Russia was caught running a large, state-sponsored doping program; those punishments have been widely ridiculed as inadequate by athletes and Olympic officials from other countries.Stadiums across Europe were illuminated in the colors of Ukraine’s flag this weekend.Michael Probst/Associated PressLeft, Deutsche Bank Park in Frankfurt, Germany. Right, London Stadium, the home of West Ham.Paul Childs/Action Images Via ReutersThey also may not be enough to persuade Russia’s rivals to agree to share a field with a Russian team, and put FIFA in the uncomfortable position of expelling three of its members from the playoff — and thus allowing Russia to advance unchallenged to the World Cup, soccer’s showcase event.Understand Russia’s Attack on UkraineCard 1 of 7What is at the root of this invasion? More