Deputy Minister of Sports of the Russian Federation Odes Baysultanov told that the Russian Football Union (RFU) should not have feared sanctions from UEFA and FIFA, waiting eight years to include Crimean clubs in its structure.
On Thursday, at the forum “Russia – a sports power”, Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation Dmitry Chernyshenko spoke about the creation of a football league for teams from new regions of the country. The Executive Committee of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in early October suspended the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) until further notice due to the inclusion of new regions in the organization of the Olympic councils – the regions of the DPR, the LPR, Zaporozhye and Kharkov.
— You can see what kind of reaction the inclusion of new topics in the ROC structure caused. Should we now expect the same thing in football?
— From my point of view, the RFU, when it made the decision to include the Crimean clubs in the second division, had already taken on these obligations. Therefore, I see no risk in creating the Commonwealth League. On the contrary, we are thus creating a certain intermediate format, which at one time was precisely what the RFU demanded.
I would like to express my own position on this issue. This lies in the fact that we are not a banana republic, but one of the largest states in the world. With its own constitution, with its own law. And we are not a branch of UEFA, FIFA or anyone else. We must work on the basis of the constitutional rights of our citizens. Tell me, please, who in our country can prohibit another person from freely practicing sports?
– Person.
– So what are we talking about? This is our territory, our country, these are Russian citizens. And such a question absolutely should not arise. There will be problems whether we are included anywhere or not, I don’t care. Why can you and I play football, hockey and everything else, but not the people of Donetsk or Lugansk? On the contrary, if we have not developed Crimea for eight years, it is not the fault of UEFA or anyone, but our common fault. And if we had made the right choice from the start, our Anglo-Saxon “colleagues” would now know that it is impossible to make Russia bend with sanctions. Russia always tries to resolve everything peacefully, but unfortunately, it begins to perceive this as weakness. But Russia is not weak, it will never kneel. We need to protect the rights of our athletes even more strictly, which is why all these actions are absolutely justified,” Baysultanov told the correspondent.
From October 19 to 22, the international sports forum “Russia is a sports power” will take place in Perm.
Source : MatchTV
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