Football players and fans will not like the transition to the Asian Confederation, State Duma deputy Svetlana Zhurova believes.

The meeting of the executive committee of the RFU will be held at the House of Football in Moscow on Friday. One of the items on the agenda will be the discussion of the transfer of the RFU from UEFA to the AFC.

– When the USSR collapsed, all the sports federations of our country decided that we would remain in Europe. Although a number of former republics of the Soviet Union have decided that some of their federations will be in Europe, and some in Asia. As far as I know, according to the rules, it was possible to move from one confederation to another at any time, and any of our federations could do so. We just always had uniformity, so we all ended up in Europe. But if the RFU decides today in favor of Asia, and will they be more comfortable playing there in terms of experience and competitiveness? Let’s see how it will be, there can be any solution, it can be as an intermediate, temporary.

In general, I heard that UEFA is going to let us hold some kind of youth competition in 2023, some kind of football tournament. So far, we are only discussing the transition to Asia and the expediency of this. We have been playing at the Euro all our lives, we have never participated in the Asian Games and have never been there.

Can the holding of an executive committee specifically on the topic of moving to Asia provoke UEFA to return our federation to the international arena as soon as possible? Well, we are holding this meeting not for some kind of pressure, but to discuss and decide how it will be better for our athletes. Instead of worrying about what UEFA thinks about this, stop looking at others. It is understandable that the fans will say: “What kind of experience can we get in Asia? Here, playing with European teams is another matter.” Let’s be honest, the fans and the players themselves probably won’t like this change too much,” Zhurova told Metaratings.ru.