That being said, it’s impossible now to bring back the Russian teams. Because of the way they are used, the national teams, it’s so hard to separate from the propaganda. But that is a failure, I’m not happy to say that it’s impossible; it’s sadly so, even though we are in 100 percent solidarity with Ukraine. It’s never good to make kids never play with each other. That is the aim, that they could play with each other and not be affected by the war. But that’s not possible now, football would stop and Ukraine would not play. So then we are there, and that’s a sad situation, but happening because of war.
When it comes to the Israel situation, we have always said, and we will always say, when you have a breach of FIFA statutes, it needs to be treated. It was delayed, delayed, delayed for many years, that they play with teams from [settlements in] Palestinian territories, which is not allowed by FIFA statutes. And then it’s politically very difficult, but legally not so difficult. So then you need sanctions, and then what the sanctions should be. You’ve got to look at precedents. Do you have any similar cases where you play in other people’s territories? What about Crimea? What about former Yugoslavia? Maybe you have some precedent. What’s the sanction? If it’s not changed, you increase the sanctions, because you need a rules-based system. And you need territory lines.
When we played Israel, we gave the money to the victims of Gaza, not because we did not want to give to the victims of October 7th, but because there were ongoing attacks on the kids in Gaza, and they were poor, they needed the money.
In the end, it’s all about having bridges that are actually working when this is over, when people come to terms, you need to be effective bridges that speak to both sides. For us, we have had projects in Palestine for very many years, decades, educating girls and women there to be coaches; also in Jordan, in this area. So it’s an area [where] we know how difficult it is, how many good people live there on both sides. You know, in Israel, Jordan, everywhere. So we feel very connected to the region because of these projects.
Daria Zakharova contributed to this report.