Russia will remain excluded from the race to the 2022 World Cup

The Russian team will continue to be excluded from the playoffs at the end of this month for the 2022 World Cup, after the rejection this Friday by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) of the Russian Federation’s request to suspend FIFA sanctions.

This decision, similar to the one taken on Tuesday on the UEFA sanctions, does not prejudge the future sentence of the sporting justice on the merits of the matter, which will not be studied for several weeks.

“The arbitration process continues. A panel of arbitrators is being formed and the parties exchange their written observations. No hearing has been set yet”, specified the Lausanne-based jurisdiction.

However, from now on the refusal to suspend the Russian appeal clears up the doubts of world football for the coming weeks and prevents “Sbornaia” from maintaining its chances of getting a ticket to the Qatari tournament (November 21 – December 18).

Host of the last men’s soccer World Cup, where his team reached the quarterfinals, Russia should have faced Poland on March 24 in Moscow, in the semifinals of their playoffs.

As decided by FIFA, Poland is directly qualified for the play-off final on March 29, against the winner of Sweden-Czech Republic.

CAS saves football’s highest institution a huge headache, as Poland, Sweden and the Czech Republic have steadfastly refused to take on Russia since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began in late February.

The mystery now remains both about the reasons for the CAS order, and about the arguments put forward, when even FIFA had not given any justification for its decision, taken on March 28 jointly with UEFA, to suspend the Russian teams of international competitions.

“This decision violates the fundamental rights of the Russian Federation.” and has been taken “Under pressure from their direct adversaries”, replied the Russian Football Federation, denouncing sanctions “discriminatory” and unfair to the players.

Politically, the pressure was considerable on sports institutions, after the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the wave of condemnatory reactions in the West that followed.

Deviating from its usual line of action, which consists of preserving the right of athletes to compete, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) recommended that international federations exclude Russian athletes.

As a result, they were excluded from international competitions in athletics, ice hockey, rugby, basketball, cycling, alpine skiing, climbing and the Paralympic Games in Beijing, and they maintained the right to participate under a neutral flag in tennis, swimming or judo. .

China in the future?

But by appealing to the Court of Arbitration for Sport last week, the Russian Football Federation opened the counterattack and launches the debate on the underlying question: should athletes pay for the actions of their governments?

The TAS, already criticized by part of Western sport in recent years for its management of Russian doping cases, has an extremely sensitive matter on its hands: a substantive decision favorable to the Russians would disavow almost all international bodies.

If, on the contrary, it validates the sanctions, it would open a new line for the world of sport, now susceptible to reacting to every violation of human rights, after having been reluctant for decades to venture into the political arena.

From the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to the accusations of genocide in Xinjiang by Chinese power, through the Saudi bombings in Yemen, the opportunities to take action could multiply for sports institutions.

It all depends on the scope of the Russian-Ukrainian case, Antoine Duval, a specialist in European sports law at the Asser Institute in The Hague, explained last week.

Either it is such an exceptional situation that the sanctions will remain without continuation, or it will be a turning point that will force those involved in the sport in the future “to oppose a violation of human rights by the states in which they are installed”.