By Andrew Warshaw
August 1 – Former US presidential candidate John McCain has added his voice to calls for Russia to be stripped of the 2018 World Cup finals because of the Malaysian Airlines disaster and Russian support for separatists in the east of Ukraine.
FIFA have already made it clear in a lengthy statement that moving the tournament for political reasons is not going to happen but a group of US senators have called for further pressure to be brought on football’s world governing body.
UK deputy prime minister Nick Clegg said last week it would be “unthinkable” to allow Russia to host the finals in 2018 unless there is a radical change of policy in the region and now two American politicians – including McCain – have jumped on the same bandwagon. (see inside Insight comment http://www.insideworldfootball.com/inside-insight/15144-inside-insight-semantic-gymnastics-at-its-best)
McCain said it would need other nations to support the United States’ position for FIFA even to consider a change – but that a show of collective strength had to be made against Russian president Vladimir Putin.
“I think it (changing venue) absolutely should be reconsidered, but I would hasten to add that a unilateral decision by the United States would not bode well,” McCain, who was the Republican party’s nominee for president in 2008, told ABC/ESPN’s Capitol Games podcast.
“I’m old enough to remember that after the Russian invasion of Afghanistan the United States withdrew from the Olympics, as you might recall, and it was not popular over time. So if we can get the international community to do that, I’m absolutely totally behind it.
“I’d like to see the United States and others – say, the British perhaps and other countries – raise the issue in ordinary meetings, periodic meetings that they have. Say: ‘We need to discuss this issue. Is it appropriate to have this venue in Russia at this particular time, and aren’t there other countries that would be far less controversial?'”
Chris Murphy, a Democratic senator from Connecticut, added: “If in the face of a downed airliner, in the face of crippling sanctions from the European Union, Putin thumbs his nose at the international community and continues to send in arms and personnel into eastern Ukraine, then I’m not sure how you reward this guy and his government with a major, international competition.
“You have to do it by the end of the year. You can’t take the chance that this guy is going to calm down and start behaving – because what if another Ukraine crisis erupts in the winter of 2017-2018? “
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