February 14 – The Russian Under-17 women’s team will participate in the South Asian Football Federation (SAFF) Championship having had a request to participate accepted by the sub-regional confederation.
The tournament, which in 2022 was played in September in Nepal and won by Bangladesh, is scheduled to be hosted in Dhakar, Bangladesh, March 20-28 this year.
FIFA and UEFA have banned Russian teams from all international competitions after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last February. It meant that Russia could not compete in the qualification playoffs for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. Saint Petersburg was also stripped of the 2022 Champions League final hosting rights.
The ban prompted the Russian Football Union (RFU) to consider departing UEFA and shifting to the AFC though no formal application for membership has been made.
SAFF members are India, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Its members are also members of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) and FIFA. While SAFF receives grant funding from the AFC, it is not a member f the AFC in its own right.
The participation of the U-17 team at least suggests another degree of movement by the RFU toward Asia.
No nations have previously resigned from UEFA, but there is a precedent of the AFC accepting from outside the confederation. Since 2006, Australia has been a member of the AFC after withdrawing membership from the Oceania Football Confederation (OFC).
“In the current geopolitical realities, the presence of the RFU in UEFA contradicts the national interests of Russia,” Roman Teryushkov, the deputy of the State Duma, told sports.ru, in December. “It is impossible to build sports friendship with countries unfriendly to us and with constant poking from the collective West.”
At a RFU executive committee meeting at the end of 2022 delegates voted against leaving UEFA. However, RFU president Alexander Dyukov did not rule out joining the AFC in the future. A decision – which must ultimately be multilateral – would have major consequences for Russian clubs as well as the country’s qualifying route for the 2026 World Cup.
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