Football Union of Russia to set up joint working group with UEFA on transfer to Asian confederation - union president

MOSCOW. Dec 30 (Interfax) - The Executive Council of the Football Union of Russia (FUR) has not made a decision on withdrawing from the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) and joining the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) but has decided to set up a working group including UEFA representatives, FUR President Alexander Dyukov said.

"Today, we finished the Executive Council's meeting, which started last Friday. We continued to consider our possible transition from UEFA to the Asian Confederation. After preliminary consultations with UEFA, the Executive Council decided to address UEFA to set up a working group. We invited UEFA to delegate its representatives. We have also proposed inviting representatives of the International Federation of Association Football [FIFA] and the International Olympic Committee [IOC]," Dyukov said at a press briefing on Friday.

"The main purpose of the group is to analyze and work out proposals on a set of measures aimed at resolving the problem of returning Russian clubs and national teams to official international tournaments. The establishment of a working group involving FIFA and the IOC will speed up the achievement of this goal. We may move to Asia, but we need a FIFA decision to play at the 2026 World Cup, and we might reach a consensus quicker within the framework of this working group," Dyukov said.

It was announced earlier that the FUR Executive Council would make a decision as to whether to join the AFC on December 27. However, the council postponed the final decision to the end of 2022 on Tuesday.

The IOC recommended in February 2022 that international sports federations suspend Russians and Belarusians from international competition because of the situation in Ukraine. Most of the federations, including FIFA and UEFA, followed the IOC's recommendations.