The 2022 FIFA World Cup is going to be played in Qatar from November 20 to December 18 and everything has been finalized for the tournament from teams to the Venue. But the host of 2018 FIFA World Cup, Russia is excluded from this tournament as you may already know. A few days after Russia initiated an attack on Ukraine, FIFA banned Russia from the World Cup. UEFA also did the same to Russia and now another nation has to replace Russia in already scheduled games. It’s an interesting question to find the answer. In this article you will get to know Russia’s status in every UEFA game.
A total of 32 teams have qualified for the FIFA World Cup Qatar as this number has been constant since 1998. But from the next world cup onwards, this number of qualified teams would be increased to 48. Well teams from six different regions will be making the squads of 2022 FIFA World Cup. Some of the major countries are also in the tournament like Argentina, Brazil, Wales and many more except for Russia. So we’ll also take a look at why Russia isn’t going to appear in the tournament but before that lets see who is going to replace Russia in various games.
Who will replace Russia in UEFA competitions?
On February 28, soon after Russia’s attack on Ukraine, UEFA took its decision to suspend all Russian representative teams and banned them from all the UEFA competition games. Russia’s one wrong step towards Ukraine led to a series of decisions taken by UEFA Executive Committee that had to be implied to upcoming competitions. These were to ensure smooth running of matches in a safe and secure manner.
UEFA Executive Committee’s decisions are as follows:
UEFA Nations League 2022/23
Somehow, the boycott of Russia from this competition didn’t happen directly. The committee decided that Russia will not participate in the group 2 of League B and consequently be eliminated from the game and ranked last in League B.
UEFA Women’s EURO 2022
Not just the Russian men’s team was suspended from the UEFA but the women’s team also had to face the consequences. Russia was forbidden to participate in group C of UEFA Women’s EURO final game scheduled from 6 to 31 July in England and UEFA decided to replace it with Portugal, Russia’s opponent in the play-off.
Qualification for FIFA women’s World Cup 2023
Russia was suspended in February 2022, so it didn’t play two matches in April in Group E. Also, UEFA banned Russia from any of the subsequent matches of the tournament and its result is still considered as null and void.
2021-23 European Under 21 Championship
Russia didn’t play the two matches scheduled in March in Group C due to suspension. Neither was Russia allowed to participate in consequent matches of the competition and the group C will continue as a five team group excluding Russia.
UEFA Women’s Futsal EURO 2022
As a consequence of the suspension, Russia will not participate in the final tournament comprising Portugal, Ukraine and Spain between July 1 and 3. It was replaced by Hungary who was a runner up in the main round behind Russia.
2022/23 UEFA Women’s Futsal EURO
Russia has been directly sent to the Group 4 of the Main round. And the second runner up from the Preliminary round will replace Russia in the main round.
European Qualifications to the FIFA Futsal World Cup 2024
The criteria of replacing teams is as simple as speaking. Whoever is ranked below the qualified team from the Preliminary round is supposed to replace the winning team in the Main round if needed. Same thing goes with Russian. Russian will be replaced by Norway, the best third ranked team of the Preliminary round.
Why is Russia not playing in the FIFA World Cup 2022?
The Major reason behind Russian not appearing in the FIFA World Cup 2022 is its war with Ukraine. As soon as Russian started the attack on Ukraine, FIFA banned Russian in February following the series of invasions in Ukraine.
Later, Russian also made a request to freeze the ban on its football teams in the FIFA competitions but their request was turned down by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS). A few days later, a decision of CAS confirmed that will not be a part of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.
The country was all set to play against Poland on March 24 but FIFA instead handed their opponents a bye to the final of their play-off route. Then, Poland was made to face either Sweden or the Czech Republic and then the semi-final on March 24 led him to the World Cup Qatar.
