UEFA Appears Prepared to Allow League in Crimea

By Patrick Reevell

May 22, 2015

MOSCOW — Soccer officials in Crimea have said that European soccer’s governing body, UEFA, has approved the creation of a new league on the disputed peninsula, dragging UEFA’s awkward position over the Ukraine crisis into prominence again and aggravating yet another political headache for international soccer authorities.

Georgii A. Ilyakov, a representative of Crimea’s soccer association, told a Crimean newspaper on Thursday that the association would establish an eight-team league under UEFA and that it was likely to start in August.

UEFA officials said the announcement was premature but broadly correct. Frantisek Laurinec, an official leading UEFA’s commission on Crimea, said that no final approval had been given but that in principle the organization supported the Crimeans’ plan.

“It’s true, but it’s not finalized, this deal — we are discussing it,” Laurinec said by telephone. “In principle, this idea is supported by UEFA.” He added that the competition could start at the end of August.

UEFA’s executive committee gave initial approval for a league in March, and the latest comments seemed to suggest the project was quietly moving forward.

The status of clubs in Crimea highlights the fine line that world soccer authorities have been treading over the Ukraine crisis, seeking to maintain business as usual with Russia while abiding by Western sanctions that have severely limited cooperation with Crimean organizations and have been accompanied by calls to strip Russia of its right to host the 2018 World Cup.

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Frantisek Laurinec said the eight-team league was supported in principle by UEFA.CreditJoe Klamar/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

It is also another example of how international soccer’s governing bodies are having to negotiate a thicket of prickly geopolitical issues at the moment, while also navigating several scandals connected to awarding the hosting rights of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups. Next week, FIFA is set to be plunged into the Palestinian-Israeli conflict when it will have to vote on a Palestinian soccer federation’s proposal to suspend Israel’s association. And this week, the troubled preparations for Qatar’s 2022 World Cup experienced another scandal when BBC journalists reporting on stadium construction workers’ deaths in that country were arrested and detained by the Qatari police.

FIFA has stuck doggedly to the position that soccer is above politics; its president, Sepp Blatter, has pressed the Palestinians to withdraw their proposal about Israel. Angered by persistent calls for the World Cups to be taken from Russia and Qatar, Blatter recently snapped at a news conference, “The message is, leave sports alone.”

But Russia’s seizure of Crimea, along with its soccer clubs, from Ukraine last year has posed a tricky issue for FIFA and UEFA, as well as for Russia’s soccer authorities. In the wake of European Union sanctions, UEFA voted to prohibit Russia from incorporating Crimean clubs into its leagues and barred them from participating in international competitions.

Then, last summer, leaked recordings appeared to show Russia’s top soccer executives panicking over whether to take on the Crimean clubs lest that decision cause them to be penalized or result in having the 2018 World Cup pulled from Russia.

Three Crimean clubs finally briefly joined a Russian regional division, but they were expelled after UEFA ruled against the move. The Crimean league is intended as a compromise, allowing Crimean clubs to play matches without breaching sanctions.

In March, UEFA announced that it would treat Crimea as a “special zone,” as neither Russian nor Ukrainian, and that it would help Crimea develop its own soccer system. In return, Russia has agreed that the Crimean clubs will not ask to play in European competitions for at least two years.