By Andrew Warshaw
September 2 – Senior Russian football sources have for the first time provided fresh information which they claim proves that their federation has not interfered with Ukrainian clubs following the widely condemned annexation of Crimea.
Three Crimean clubs – TSK Simferopol, SKChF Sevastopol and Zhemchuzhina Yalta – have been playing in Russian Cup and League matches following the disputed reunification of Crimea with Russia.
The move led to Ukrainian football authorities writing to UEFA and FIFA demanding sanctions and asserting their jurisdiction over all footballing matters in Crimea. UEFA have since called both sides together for landmark talks next month to try and resolve the ongoing crisis in Crimea and eastern Ukraine.
High-ranking sources close to the Russian Football Federation say their side of the story has not been properly heard and refuted suggestions they had taken over Ukrainian clubs.
“The position of the Russian side is that we do not want to exert any influence on football in Ukraine,” said one informed source. “Clubs that were under the auspices of the Ukrainian federation remain. On the territory of Crimea, there are new entities established under the Russian federation but there is not a single player who played in the old clubs and this can be easily confirmed by legal documents.”
UEFA’s Emergency Panel recently issued a statement saying that any football matches played by Crimean clubs organised under the auspices of the Russian Football Union will not be recognised by UEFA. The Russian source declined to address the bigger picture of whether Russia was justified in moving into Crimea in the first place. “I will only talk about football, not politics. The fact is these are new legal entities. Russia did not take any property from the old clubs. Nor did it take any players.”
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