Ejecting It From World Cup Qualifying

World soccer’s global governing body suspended Russia and its teams from all competitions on Monday, ejecting the country from qualifying for the 2022 World Cup only weeks before it was to play for one of Europe’s final places in this year’s tournament in Qatar.

The suspension, which was announced Monday evening in coordination with European soccer’s governing body, also barred Russian club teams from international competitions. The decision came a day after FIFA was heavily criticized for not going far enough in punishing Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, and amid mounting demands from national federations for stronger action.

The initial pressure for an outright ban of Russia came from soccer officials in Poland, Sweden and the Czech Republic, whose national team faced the prospect of games against Russia in a World Cup playoff in March. Other countries and officials, including the federations representing France, England and the United States, quickly said they would not play Russia under any circumstances.

FIFA and its European counterpart, UEFA, said the ban on Russia would be in place “until further notice.”

“Football is fully united here and in full solidarity with all the people affected in Ukraine,” FIFA said in a statement. Ukraine’s team, which is set to play Scotland in its own World Cup playoff in March, will remain in the competition.

UEFA then went a step further in breaking its deep ties to Russia: It announced that it had ended a sponsorship agreement with the Russian energy giant Gazprom. The deal was worth a reported $50 million a year to European soccer.

UEFA had last week stripped St. Petersburg, the home of Gazprom, of this year’s Champions League final

FIFA and UEFA decided to bar Russia only hours after the International Olympic Committee called for international sports federations to prohibit Russian athletes and teams from all global sporting events where possible. The Olympic officials said Russia had breached a commitment — known as the Olympic Truce, and signed before the start of the Beijing Winter Games and scheduled to run through the Paralympics that open this week — when it invaded Ukraine.

The immediate consequence of soccer’s ban on Russia is that it will lose its place in a four-team group for one of Europe’s final places for the World Cup. Poland, which was scheduled to play Russia in March in Moscow, had said flatly that it would refuse to take the field for the game, a stance it repeated after FIFA announced its initial slate of penalties on Sunday night.

Cezary Kulesza, the president of Poland’s soccer federation, called FIFA’s initial decision not to eject Russia “totally unacceptable.” In a post on Twitter, he added: “We are not interested in participating in this game of appearances. Our stance remains intact: Polish National Team will NOT PLAY with Russia, no matter what the name of the team is.”

Sweden and the Czech Republic, the teams that could have met Russia — also in Moscow — if the Russians beat Poland, said that they, too, would refuse to play, even at a neutral site.

The indefinite ban on Russia also extends to its club teams, meaning that Spartak Moscow, its last remaining participant in a continental competition, will no longer be able to compete in its Europa League knockout game against Germany’s RB Leipzig. That match was in doubt before Monday’s decision, with officials unsure how the Russian team could travel after the European Union issued a blanket ban on Russian flights into the 27-member bloc.

It remains unclear if the decision to exclude Russia will face a challenge in the courts. Russia, as well as some of its athletes, has in recent years successfully fought exclusion from other events, including the Olympic Games, by getting punishments watered down through appeals to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

The Russian Football Union, known as the R.F.U., called the ban discriminatory, and said it was considering its legal options. “Such actions split the international sports community, which has always adhered to the principles of equality, mutual respect and independence from politics,” the F.R.U. said. “We reserve the right to challenge the decision of FIFA and UEFA in accordance with international sports law.”

Soccer’s largest players’ union, FIFPro, had earlier demanded Russia be thrown out, saying it backed all the nations that had called for the country’s expulsion from global soccer. “Today must mark a turning point for how sport engages with society, how it stands for democracy and human rights,” said the union, which represents 65,000 players worldwide. “A new approach, consistently applied, that rests on sport’s proclaimed values is urgently needed.”

Projecting the USMNT’s Last World Cup Qualifying Squad

One window remains for the U.S. in its quest to reach Qatar. Who will be brought in, and who can replace the injured Weston McKennie?

This is March, and while the madness associated with the month is typically reserved for college basketball, it'll extend to Concacaf's World Cup qualifying campaign as well. The finish line is in sight, and the region's berths at the fall showpiece event in Qatar are up for grabs.

World Cup qualifying comes to a close for the U.S. men’s national team later this month, with matches at Mexico (March 24) and Costa Rica (March 30) sandwiching a home game against Panama in Orlando (March 27). No matter what, as long as the U.S. takes care of business at home and beats Panama, its floor is a fourth-place finish and the intercontinental playoff against an Oceania side (most likely New Zealand) in June. Absent those three points, though, it could get awfully nerve-wracking for the U.S., considering in its history it has never won qualifying games in either of its two away destinations. Canada, meanwhile, enters the final window four points clear of the U.S. and Mexico, who are both four ahead of Panama and five clear of Costa Rica.

This window comes with no squad caveats for the U.S. Unlike the winter session, nobody is out of season on the club level—MLS will be a month into its 2022 campaign by the time the U.S. heads to Estadio Azteca to face El Tri and all the European leagues who had winter breaks are back in full swing. The one built-in concern is that Weston McKennie won't be available. The U.S. midfielder fractured his foot in the first leg of the Champions League round of 16, shelving him for around two months. It's a brutal loss considering what he brings to the team, both in the run of play and on set pieces. He was immense in the two games against Mexico in which he featured last year and has been in the best form of his career.

Nevertheless, the U.S. has gotten used to playing without a full deck due to injuries, suspensions and other various reasons, and the depth cultivated over the last couple of years was done so with situations like this in mind. The next-man-up mentality has been a hallmark of this team, and it will have to be once again. So who could be called in, ideally, to help the U.S. celebrate clinching a men’s World Cup berth for the first time since September 2013?

Russia might challenge the World Cup ban in court

FIFA’s extraordinary decision to bar Russian teams from international soccer, and most notably from the World Cup, currently lives in a four-sentence press release and nowhere else.

It was made by the Bureau of the FIFA Council, a seven-man body empowered to take emergency actions like this one, in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. But its brevity left more questions than answers, and left it vulnerable to opposition. The Russian Football Union said Monday that it “reserve[s] the right to challenge the decision … in accordance with international sports law.” The RFU, which governs soccer in Russia, could appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), which could overturn the suspension.

FIFA officials are aware of this possibility. The RFU had previously said that it did “not see any legal grounds for canceling” Russia’s March 24 World Cup qualifying playoff match against Poland. Multiple legal experts told Yahoo Sports that there is no obvious regulatory basis for a full-fledged ban. They noted that FIFA’s statement did not reference specific statutes or precedent.

“FIFA left itself wide open to come up with rationale later,” said Steve Bank, a UCLA professor who teaches international sports law.

FIFA, instead, seemed to respond to growing pressure from potential Russian opponents, to International Olympic Committee recommendations, and to an international community that expected it to take a stand.

That stand has been widely praised, but to defend it in court, FIFA might have to admit to what the stand really is: an exercising of political discretion that upends FIFA’s own longstanding commitment to political neutrality.

What is FIFA's strongest legal argument in banning Russia?

FIFA’s statutes fill 92 pages and do not explicitly grant it the power to punish teams for non-sporting actions that their national governments undertake. In fact, the regulations state that “FIFA remains neutral in matters of politics and religion.” Legal experts believe the RFU would cite these statutes at a CAS appeal hearing, and argue that a war for which it bears no responsibility should not be grounds for suspension.

FIFA’s Article 16 grants the FIFA the authority to “temporarily suspend with immediate effect a member association that seriously violates its obligations,” but the RFU would argue that it, as a soccer federation, has not violated any obligations. Besides, FIFA’s ban targeted “all Russian teams,” not the federation itself, an indication that Article 16 would not provide legal basis.

The most applicable statute, Bank and others believe, is Article 3, which, since 2016, has stated that “FIFA is committed to respecting all internationally recognized human rights and shall strive to promote the protection of these rights.” FIFA, Bank said, could argue that sanctioning Russia falls in line with its commitment to promoting human rights, such as freedom and peace.

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