Russia wants to create a football league for the areas it controls. Clubs from annexed Crimea, the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhask People’s Republics, and the Russian-controlled regions of Kherson and Zaporizhia in southern Ukraine, as well as from the breakaway Georgian regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, will participate in the competition. The establishment of the league is planned for 2023.
Russia’s latest proposal for a football league was discussed by Deputy Sports Minister Odes Baysultanov, who talked about a single Premier League in which football clubs from Crimea and friendly republics could participate.
In Crimea and other friendly republics
“At our meeting in the DPR (Donetsk People’s Republic), it was proposed to create a united first class in which all friendly republics can participate,” Baysultanov said, according to information from “EuroWeekly”. Plans to create a championship include a tour system not only in Crimea, but also in the friendly republics of Donetsk People’s Republic and Luhansk People’s Republic, as well as other controlled areas in Ukraine and Georgia.
It is a separate structure that should be created on the initiative of the Ministry of Sports of the Russian Federation and which will supposedly have nothing to do with the structures of the Football Union of the Russian Federation – which is actually a member of FIFA and Uefa.
One more step to assert dominance
This move is the latest example of Moscow trying to assert its dominance over these areas, especially in the newly conquered areas of southern and eastern Ukraine. Russian forces have taken much of the territory of southern and eastern Ukraine in the months since President Vladimir Putin ordered the country’s troops to invade its western neighbor in late February.
Placing football clubs in these areas under the Russian Ministry of Sports would be similar to what happened in 2014, when the Russian Football Association attempted to take over the Crimean clubs shortly after Moscow annexed the peninsula from Ukraine. On February 28, FIFA and UEFA banned the Russian national team and its clubs from all international tournaments.
Source: Krone
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