‘No player supports him’ Putin braces for sport world revolt as Russia paying war price
Ukraine: ‘None of the players’ support Putin says Stakhovsky
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Ukrainian tennis star Sergiy Stakhovsky spoke of leaving his wife and family behind to fly out to Ukraine and fight for his country despite having little to no experience with the military. The tennis star praised sports organisations that have banned Russian athletes from competing due to President Putin’s atrocities on Ukrainian citizens. Russia has been banned from the World Cup by FIFA and will not be allowed to participate in the highly anticipated Qatar playoff.
The BBC journalist said: “Tennis is irrelevant to you right now.
“Elina Svitolina fellow Ukrainian tennis player has said she wants the tennis authorities to make Russian and Belarusian tennis players compete as neutral athletes without flags and anthems, doe that help?”
Mr Stakhovsky said: “I would say yes, I know that none of the players are supporting Putin.
“The difference is when Ukrainian player steps on the court and has to play against Russian and see their flag of a country which every single troop is caring while killing civilian shelling civilian cities, I mean its unimaginable.”
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The BBC journalist added: “Russian tennis players like Daniil Medvedev, who is now the world number one has talked about promoting peace.
“And Andrey Rublev who won the title in Dubai wrote ‘no war please’ on the television camera lens, does that make a difference to you in Ukraine?”
Mr Stakhovsky said: “Yes it makes a big difference.
“It makes a lot of difference in terms of perspective for Russia and for Mr Putin in particular because he really loves sports.
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Mr Stakhovsky added: “And he loves that Russia is successful in sport, and he loves that he can demonstrate his success out in the world during the Olympics and all the other sports events.
“So of course, that helps because once Russia is getting kicked out of every single sports organisation, and not being able to compete with their flag.
“They’ve been banned from Qatar 2022, this helps but it has to continue.”
Taking a stand against the war in Ukraine, Poland’s football manager Jakub Kwiatkowski said: “We were discussed this last couple of days and finally, during the night, Friday to Saturday, we decided that our statement is that we are not going to play with Russia.
“It doesn’t matter neither neutral ground nor in Russia.
“This is the final decision in this circumstances when this brutal aggression of Putin to Ukraine we don’t see and we do not intend to play the match with this country. Yes, with the players who represent such values like Russia, yes, they attack their neighbours.
“So for us, it’s obvious that we can play with them.”
FIFA and UEFA also made and stand and released a joint statement together which read: “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.”
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