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Stockholm, Feb 28 (AP): Sweden\u2019s football federation maintained its objection to playing any matches against Russia following the invasion of Ukraine and expressed its disappointment Monday with FIFA for keeping the Russians in World Cup qualifying.<\/p>\n
Sweden\u2019s official stance came a day after Poland and the Czech Republic declared they would not be accepting FIFA\u2019s attempted compromise in ordering Russia to play without its flag and anthem at neutral venues under the name of its federation \u2014 the Football Union of Russia.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Swedish Football Association is disappointed with FIFA\u2019s decision but is determined to continue to work together with other federations to cancel Russia\u2019s matches in the upcoming World Cup qualifiers,\u201d the body said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Swedish Football Association insists that we will not play any matches against Russia given its illegal and deeply unjust invasion of Ukraine. An attitude shared by the Czech and Polish football federations, among others.\u201d<\/p>\n
The federation said world football \u201ccannot silently watch and not act when countries are attacked completely unjustly.\u201d<\/p>\n
Swedish federation president Karl-Erik Nilsson is the senior vice president at UEFA, European football’s governing body. Nilsson said Sunday he expects a \u201csharper stance\u201d from FIFA.<\/p>\n
Russia is scheduled to play Poland in a semi-final match in the World Cup playoffs on 24 March for the right to host Sweden or the Czech Republic five days later to decide which team advances to the World Cup in Qatar.<\/p>\n
Polish football federation president Cezary Kulesza said Sunday it was \u201ctotally unacceptable\u201d that FIFA had not immediately expelled Russia from World Cup qualifying and said Poland is \u201cnot interested in participating in this game of appearances.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Czechs followed by saying FIFA\u2019s stance had not changed their decision not to play Russia.<\/p>\n
Another of Russia\u2019s future opponents, Albania, also said Sunday it would not play against that country in any sports. Russia and Albania are scheduled to meet twice in June in a second-tier group of the UEFA Nations League. The group also includes Iceland and Israel.<\/p>\n
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Stockholm, Feb 28 (AP): Sweden\u2019s football federation maintained its objection to playing any matches against Russia following the invasion of Ukraine and expressed its disappointment Monday with FIFA for keeping the Russians in World Cup qualifying. Sweden\u2019s official stance came a day after Poland and the Czech Republic declared they would not be accepting FIFA\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-185489","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185489","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=185489"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185489\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=185489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=185489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=185489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}