Despite being re-admitted by UEFA, Russia’s U17 football teams cannot take part in the ongoing European Championship qualifiers.
“The item was removed from the agenda because no technical solution could be found that would allow Russian teams to play,” the European Football Union told the German Press Agency after the UEFA Executive Committee meeting in Nyon.
At the end of September, the committee of the continental association decided to allow Russian junior teams to take part in European competitions again – but without an anthem and flag. There was sharp criticism of this. More than ten associations had announced that they would not compete against Russian teams. The groups for the first qualifying round for the 2025 European Championship have already been drawn. The first games for juniors have already taken place.
DFB did not want to join the boycott
The German Football Association recently declared that it did not want to join a boycott of games against Russian youth teams. Hans-Joachim Watzke, the German representative on the UEFA Executive Committee, had previously defended the decision to allow youth teams from Russia to take part in continental competitions again. Karl-Heinz Rummenigge is also a member of the decision-making body as a representative from Germany.
“I interpret UEFA’s about-face as an admission that the timing of efforts to reintegrate Russian teams into the youth tournament was completely wrong,” Norway’s association president Lise Klaveness told WDR magazine “Sport inside”.
