FIFA confirm Russia kicked out of Qatar World Cup as Poland given bye to playoff final
FIFA's stance on the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine has reached tangible consequences, as the football governing body officially announced that Russia is disqualified from World Cup qualification.
Football's global governing body has taken a firm position on Russian football in recent weeks, with a combined decision, alongside UEFA, to expel Russian teams from all relevant club competitions.
The initial message of restricting Russia to playing a neutral venues was met with frustration and it subsequently ramped up to full ban, with their expulsion from the tournament in Qatar set to remain in place in 2022. While it was announced last week that Russia would be left out, the elimination of Russia is official now that FIFA announced Poland advances directly to the mini-bracket final.
In addition, FIFA announced that Ukraine's mini-bracket semifinal against Scotland is postponed until the June international window, accepting a request submitted by the besieged nation. Ukraine is not subject to any ban from FIFA, but the decision has been made on security grounds and a lack of player availability.
Russia eliminated from 2022 FIFA World Cup contention
While it had been previously announced that Russia would be banned from all international competitions indefinitely, no announcement specific to World Cup qualifying had been given as UEFA and FIFA decide how to proceed with the format after Russia's ban.
On Tuesday, that decision was made as Poland was officially advanced past its match against Russia and into the mini-bracket final.
That leaves Russia officially disqualified from contention, with no way back. The decision could be appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, but that would have to be done quite soon with the matches in less than a month's time.
Postponement of Scotland v. Ukraine in Path A
On 3 March 2022, the Ukrainian Association of Football wrote to FIFA requesting that its qualification match(es) be rescheduled owing to the impossibility of organising both the travel and training of a team under the current circumstances.
Following consultation with UEFA and the four participating member associations in Path A of the European qualifying play-offs, it was unanimously agreed in the spirit of solidarity to accept this request. The match between Scotland and Ukraine, initially scheduled for 24 March 2022, will now be postponed to the existing June window, and consequently, the match between the winners of Scotland v. Ukraine and Wales v. Austria will also be postponed to the same window.
It was further agreed that the match between Wales and Austria will remain as scheduled on 24 March 2022, owing to the need to limit the disruption to the competitive matches already scheduled for the June window in what is an already congested calendar.
Alternative fixtures for affected teams in the March window are being explored by the relevant parties. Similarly, the details of the rescheduled fixtures will be announced in due course and the international match calendar window of June will be adapted as necessary for the teams concerned once these details have been finalised.
Poland bye to the final in Path B
In addition, subsequent to the decision of 28 February 2022 taken jointly with the UEFA Executive Committee to suspend all Russian teams from participation in both FIFA and UEFA competitions until further notice, the Bureau of the FIFA Organising Committee decided that Poland will receive a bye to the final of Path B due to take place on 29 March 2022, in which they will face the winners of the match between Sweden and the Czech Republic.
