Gianni Infantino is doing Vladimir Putin’s PR for him
It was 14 November 2021 when Russia last played a competitive international match, a 1-0 defeat by Croatia in Split in qualifying for the Qatar World Cup.
An apt location, given that Vladimir Putin was only months away from launching an invasion that would reshape the global order.
Within a week of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Fifa suspended the country from international competition.
At the time, Russia were 35th in the Fifa rankings.
Surely that ranking has subsequently sunk like a stone?
Not a bit of it.
In October 2026, war-weary Russia are ranked exactly where they were when Russian forces crossed the Ukrainian border and bombs began falling on Kyiv four and a half years ago.
As the first international window of the 2026-27 season draws to a close, Russia are preparing to play their third match in eight days, with Nigeria the visitors to Nizhny Novgorod on Tuesday evening.
Clearly, the Russian Football Union would rather be competing in the Nations League but, fixture-wise, it is starting to look like business as usual for a country finding it increasingly easy to secure opponents willing to put moral considerations aside.
The same accusation could be levelled at Fifa.
Later this month, Russia will return to an international tournament for the first time since the invasion of Ukraine, with a team entered in the Under-15 World Cup in Azerbaijan.
The tournament will include teams from England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland.
Germany, the Netherlands and Iceland have all withdrawn from the competition.
“The international sports community must maintain unity and principled consistency, ruling out any concessions to the aggressor state,” said Matvii Bidnyi, Ukraine’s minister of youth and sports.
“The Fifa football festival in Azerbaijan featuring the Russian Under-15 national team with official national symbols is nothing less than the legitimisation of a terrorist state, even if framed as an unofficial festival format.
“It is a direct attempt to provide Russians with a platform to display state symbols and spread Russian propaganda.”
He has a point.
Russia’s return to international competition, regardless of the level, is the clearest indication yet of a collective weakening of resolve towards a country that hosted the World Cup only eight years ago.
Ukraine’s stance remains as resolute as ever.
Earlier this year, Andriy Shevchenko, president of the Ukrainian Association of Football, responded to Fifa president Gianni Infantino suggesting that Russia could eventually be welcomed back into major competitions by inviting both Fifa and Uefa to visit Ukraine.
“We, Ukraine, must be open to everyone,” he said. “Our policy is to be open. There are certain things, as you know, that we speak out against – that much is clear.
“We have our policy regarding Russia and their admission, and we have never hidden it. My personal position, as it was, remains the same: we do not want Russia to be allowed into football.”
Despite becoming an international pariah following its invasion of Ukraine, an increasing number of national teams are willing to travel to Russia – or host them, as Egypt did in Cairo shortly before this summer’s World Cup.
Qatar have played Russia twice, while Serbia, Peru, Chile and Bolivia have also faced them in Russia since 2022.
And because Russia have lost only two friendlies – against Egypt and Chile, who beat them 2-0 in Sochi in November 2025 – since the start of the war, their Fifa ranking is unlikely to change significantly.
They are able to play these matches because they remain Fifa members. Although friendlies carry a lower coefficient than qualifying or major tournament matches, Russia’s habit of avoiding defeat means a significant fall down the rankings is unlikely.
‘Fifa has an obligation to keep Russia in the football community’
Simon Chadwick, professor of Afro-Eurasian Sport at the University of Leeds, told The i Paper that global events had complicated Fifa’s stance on Russia.
“There are plenty of other countries engaged in war and other concerning practices that might warrant a similar ban,” he said.
“Moreover, Russia’s football authorities might reasonably argue that national team football isn’t the same as a country’s government’s political decision-making.
“Permitting Russia to compete [in these friendlies], therefore, appears to be Fifa’s way of addressing both sides of the argument.
“One must also remember that Russia is a member of Fifa. Hence, the organisation has an obligation to keep it engaged in the international football community, whatever the criticisms or concerns about the country.”
In February, Infantino, largely unprompted, suggested that reinstating Russia was something that should be considered.
“This ban has not achieved anything. It has just created more frustration and hatred,” he said in an interview with Sky Sports.
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A day later, Kirsty Coventry, president of the International Olympic Committee, appeared to echo those sentiments, albeit less explicitly, arguing that sport should be a “neutral ground” where athletes can “compete freely, without being held back by the politics or divisions of their governments”.
In Ukraine, those comments are likely to have been met with bewilderment and anger.
Elsewhere, however, it seems time is not just a healer but an amnesiac.
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