The decision by FIFA and UEFA to exclude Russia from all competitions obviously caused a stir and the subject was discussed on the set of La Tribune. If our columnists are not political scientists and Stephan Streker and Cécile de Gernier did not wish to advance on the subject, Marc Delire expressed his disagreement with this decision: “It is simply outrageous. I don’t see why football players should be victims of one person’s decisions to go to war with the neighbour. It’s giving yourself a clear conscience when it has nothing to do“.
Benjamin Deceuninck extrapolated the decision to other sports and cited for example the case of the number 1 in tennis, Daniil Medvedevwho has publicly expressed his disagreement with this war and who could be banned from playing if the same decision were applied to tennis.
Philippe Albert nevertheless insisted on recalling that many players have been impacted by this invasion in Ukraine: “Shakhtar’s Brazilian players had to be evacuated by train with their families. Go explain to these people that Russian clubs can still play football. There’s a matter of decency to be had“.
To this, Marc Delire recalled that the next World Cup was being held in Qatar: “Everything is fine in Qatar… Everyone is unanimous in saying that women’s rights, labor laws, immigrant workers, it’s not going well and then we’re all going to play anyway“.
Stephan Strecker was keen to recall that the awarding of the World Cup and the appointment of the FIFA president were nevertheless a different type of argument: “What is shocking is to see that Mr. Infantino is presented and accepted as the equal of the most powerful of this world when he was elected by no one. He was co-opted by people who are as rotten as him and it’s always like that in sports federations. Qatar has been bought. They didn’t make this decision for any reason other than their wallet. We know it from the start“.
