UEFA has confirmed its decision to ban Russian clubs from both its and FIFA’s competitions “until further notice” following the country’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine.
A statement from UEFA on Monday read: “All Russian clubs and national teams are suspended from participation in both FIFA and UEFA competitions until further notice.
“Following the initial decisions adopted by the FIFA Council and the UEFA Executive Committee, which envisaged the adoption of additional measures, FIFA and UEFA have today decided together that all Russian teams, whether national representative teams or club teams, shall be suspended from participation in both FIFA and UEFA competitions until further notice.
“These decisions were adopted today by the Bureau of the FIFA Council and the Executive Committee of UEFA, respectively the highest decision-making bodies of both institutions on such urgent matters.
“Football is fully united here and in full solidarity with all the people affected in Ukraine.
“Both Presidents hope that the situation in Ukraine will improve significantly and rapidly so that football can again be a vector for unity and peace amongst people.”
How many extra spots would become available in the Champions League?
Prior to this decision, the Russian Premier League had two of its clubs qualify for the UEFA Champions League.
Out of the 16 teams in the competition, just two of them can qualify for the European tournament. The league winners automatically qualify into the group stage, while the runners-up would compete in a play-off round to see if they can qualify for the tournament.
This theoretically means there will be two extra spots available for the Champions League, but how that will be spread out amongst the rest of Europe remains to be seen.
At the moment, the Premier League has four spots for the Champions League – and, with England having more than the majority of countries as it stands, it could see other nations being granted extra clubs in the competition.
Source: https://www.football.london/chelsea-fc/news/uefa-champions-league-russia-ban-23245056