Don't praise FIFA for kicking out Russia – they are only motivated by greed

FIFA is a uniquely spineless sporting governing body. 

That’s no mean feat, but this weekend’s comically feeble set of initial ‘sanctions’ on the Russian football team in the wake of last week’s invasion of Ukraine by Russian forces was a good reminder of their recent history of relative moral bankruptcy. 

Having initially refused to ban Russia from footballing competition, FIFA then announced on Monday that the team will be suspended until further notice. 

Seeing football’s governing body begrudgingly cave to public pressure from fans, individual FAs, players and precedent from other sporting bodies was the type of quick about-face often seen in organisations with no driving principles bar those of self-interest and convenience.

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In case you were actually out enjoying your weekend instead of doomscrolling and half-watching the Carabao Cup final, here’s a reminder of how exactly this sorry episode unfolded. 

After a handful of countries’ FAs (fellow World Cup qualifying playoff teams Poland, Sweden and the Czech Republic chief among them, along with England) released statements confirming they’ll refuse to play against Russia for the foreseeable future, FIFA put out their own communication on Sunday – a sad, damp squib of a statement after individual countries had taken much stronger stances. 

The current FIFA administration has proven itself no better than the one it succeeded when it comes to almost any issue affecting the game

Russia, FIFA said, could still play their games, obviously, but under the name of the Football Union of Russia, not just ‘Russia’. 

On top of that, they can’t display their flag or play their home games in their own country.

It’s like a parent confiscating a naughty kid’s phone, but leaving them with their laptop, iPad, PlayStation and spare phone. 

In a week that’s seen sporting bodies cancel the Russian Grand Prix, move the Champions League final from St Petersburg to Paris and remove Russia from the Eurovision Song Contest (Eurovision is a sport- I won’t be taking any questions on this), FIFA’s strong response was to effectively tell Russia that they can just carry on, but as the unlicensed video game version of themselves. 

The first men’s international match to be impacted by this ban, in case you needed reminding, is a Russia vs Poland qualifying playoff for a place at a 2022 World Cup in Qatar, which has already been marred by grave human rights concerns and – quite probably – a crooked bidding process. 

No chance of anything corrupting the beautiful game’s integrity there, no siree!

While FIFA’s climbdown a scarce 24 hours later corrects the initial, howlingly bad verdict, the motivations of greed and cowardice that drove the decision haven’t gone anywhere. 

Their soft touch on this isn’t a surprise, or at least it certainly shouldn’t be. 

This is an organisation keeping their World Cup in a country where more than 6,500 migrant workers have died since the tournament was awarded, many of them working on building and expansions intended to prepare the country for the tournament.

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This is also the organisation whose current president said, just weeks ago, ‘We need to give hope to Africans so they don’t need to cross the Mediterranean in order to find, maybe, a better life but more probably death in the sea.’

Incredibly, those comments were made in reference to the money grab plot to hold a World Cup every two years, rather than every four. 

Time and again, the current FIFA administration has proven itself no better than the one it succeeded when it comes to almost any issue affecting the game or its surroundings. 

Incidents of clear racism are scarcely met with anything more than a short ‘behind closed doors’ order and fairly insubstantial fine, such as the judgment handed down against Hungary last year – even while they were serving a separate UEFA punishment for a similar incident. 

There’s a stench of cowardice about the sanctions they continually refuse to hand down to member FAs, as if they’re afraid that doing anything as extreme as ‘stopping a country from playing international football a few times a year’ might dent their $5.5bn in assets or – worse – mean that someone actually has to take a moral position on something. 

In response to any action against Russia, there will probably be a lot of tedious posturing about ‘keeping football non-political’, as if politicisation hasn’t run through the veins of the sport since money and national teams were introduced. 

If we’re keeping football non-political, should we mention that the same FIFA president, Gianni Infantino, was presented the Russian Order of Friendship medal by Vladimir Putin in 2019 after what the former called the ‘best World Cup ever’ in Russia? 

Probably fine. Certainly nothing to read into there…

It’s all too rare that football finds collective courage on issues like this, but the fact that Russia has received the footballing sanctions they deserve is because the collective will of players and FAs forced it – not because FIFA has a conscience.

If the situation in Ukraine doesn’t change in the coming months, the Women’s European Championships in the summer is likely to be the first of many major flashpoints for football. 

What decision will FIFA make? The same one they always make. Whatever works best for them, in that exact moment. 

There’s no deeper meaning, no secret agenda, no principles to consider. 

Just greed and cowardice all the way down. 

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