If the Russian teams are excluded from all international and Israeli football competitions no, it is only for political reasons. To admit what has already been evident for almost two years is the same president of UEFA, the European football confederation, Aleksander Ceferin. Ceferin said he was against the exclusion of Israeli teams from the European cups, taking In general, positions in favor of athletes. For Russia, however, the question is different: “With the situation in Russia and Ukraine, there was a very strong political pressure,” he explained. For Israel «It is more a pressure of civil society than politicians»; And “politicians are very pragmatic”. The exclusion of the Russian teams, in short, took place on Request for extra-charging bodiesand if the same criterion is not being applied to Israel, it is why those same organs do not want it.
Ceferin’s statements arrived on the occasion of an interview with the US newspaper Politico. During the interview, several themes were addressed, including that of the ties between sport and politics. In general, Ceferin said he was against the Introduction of political issues within the world of football. According to the president of UEFA, excluding athletes would be wrong in every situation. «In my opinion, sport must try to indicate the way to go, but not preventing athletes from competingCeferin said. “Why can an athlete do to his government to stop a war?” The Russian-Ukrainian conflict would be a good example of the poor usefulness of the practice of exclusion of athletes for the President of UEFA, because the war has been going on for three and a half years despite the countermeasures taken in the sports field.
During the interview Ceferin showed that he had a very solid opinion regarding the separation between politics and sport. In this regard, he also spoke of the case of Hungary, who ended up in the middle of the controversies when UEFA identified in the Puskás Aréna of Budapest the stadium where to play the final of the next Champions League: “If you think that we will assign the competitions only to those who are in line with the dominant policy, you are wrong”. Also because, underlines the president, “I don’t think those who criticize more harshly [l’Ungheria] are exactly the paladins of human rights».
Despite the positions of Ceferin, Russian athletes cannot compete with their national team and the teams of the country has been prevented participation in European competitions. «With the war between Russia and Ukraine we had one almost hysterical political reaction»Explained Ceferin. «We were among the first to act, convinced that sport could contribute to ending this tragedy. Unfortunately, life has shown us the opposite ». Ceferin explained that the reasons behind the exclusion of Russia and its athletes from international competitions reside just behind this “hysteria“Generalized of the political world; in short, it was not an internal decision to the European Football Federation. Indeed, UEFA would also have tried to allow children under 17 years to return to compete in continental competitions: even then one was raised “Political hysteria”. In this situation, politics has “exercised pressure on some members of the Executive Committee”; He did not succeed, claims Ceferin, to make them change their idea, but forced the members to ask the Confederation to freeze the initiative “because they were attacked privately and personally to such an extentnot to be held again ».
Here, therefore, the question about the possible exclusion of Israeli teams and athletes finds a linear response: for Russia, Ceferin reiterated, there was a “very strong political pressure», while for Israel no. The civil mobilization, underlines the president, is huge, but it is not enough. «Now there is more a pressure of civil society than politicians, and, when it comes to wars, politicians are obviously very pragmatic. I can’t say what will happen ». In short, it is the “pragmatism” of politics to constitute the real difference between Russia and Israel; that same pragmatism with which for almost two years European politicians have merely issued declarations of circumstance on the Palestinian genocide, without taking real countermeasures to stop the massacres. This is the case of the latest announcements, inaugurated by Macron, with whom several countries of the “western block” have said they are ready to recognize a state of Palestine without however doing anything because it really exists; The state they want to recognize is in fact demilitarized and subjected to external political monitoring.
