They don’t understand anything! Palkin accuses FIFA of supporting Russia

General Manager of Shakhtar Sergey Palkin In an interview with The Athletic, he criticized FIFA for supporting Russia:

“How is it that all over the world their contacts and business with Russia are ending, but at the same time FIFA maintains a television contract with Russia for the broadcast of the 2022 World Cup? Incredible.

Maybe FIFA doesn’t understand what’s going on in Ukraine. Maybe Infantino should come to Ukraine, meet with Zelensky, personally visit the places where the murders were committed. To see for yourself what’s going on. What should we understand, what kind of help should we get from FIFA.

Everyone should have paid attention to what was going on, but everyone was silent. Then you see what happens. And it turns out that the World Cup in 2018 was a big mistake. This Putin was doing his job in Crimea and was waiting for the reaction of the European organizations. And there was no big reaction.

This is one of the reasons for what happened on February 24, when the invasion of Ukraine began. These are related stories. If in 2014 there was a strong reaction from the whole European Union, from organizations like FIFA, from the whole world in general, maybe this war would not have happened at all.

But I tell you 100%, when FIFA allowed Russia to host the World Cup in 2018, Putin believed and decided that his actions were normal, that he could take further steps.”

Palkin accused FIFA of ignoring Russian crimes, refusing to expel the RFU from the organization, tacitly supporting Russia’s friendly matches with Iran, selling the right to broadcast the 2022 World Cup matches to Russian propaganda TV channels, and not supporting Ukraine.