Paris (AFP) – Sweden said on Wednesday that they believe their team may be at a disadvantage after FIFA confirmed that Russia would be knocked out of the 2022 World Cup finals due to the invasion of Ukraine.

The governing body of world football said on Tuesday that Poland, which Russia would face in the play-off semifinals this month, would get a bye to one of the European play-off finals.

Poland will meet the winners of the match between Sweden and the Czech Republic for a place in the final in Qatar.

The playoff final will take place on March 29, five days after the Swedes and Czechs play against each other, which potentially gives an advantage to the Poles who will be well rested.

The head of the Swedish Football Association, Håkan Sjöstrand, said that he would have preferred if FIFA had found a new opponent for Poland instead of Russia.

“The most reasonable and fair thing, on a sporting level, would have been for Poland to have a new opponent in the semi-finals,” said Sjostrand.

“We understand that it is a difficult situation to solve for FIFA, but still the principle of playing under the same conditions, in other words to play two competitive matches to reach the final phase of the World Cup, should apply.”

Sweden’s coach Janne Andersson said that FIFA had made the right decision to kick Russia out of the playoffs.

But he described the decision to give Poland free passage to the final as “completely crazy from a sporting point of view”.

“That said, we will focus entirely on the preparations for the match against the Czech Republic. We want to go to the World Cup and we will do everything to achieve that.

FIFA also confirmed that Ukraine’s play-off match against Scotland would be postponed until June following a request from the Ukrainian league.

Russia, which hosted the 2018 FIFA World Cup, on Tuesday appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) against its suspension from all international competitions “for the time being” by FIFA and UEFA.

The World Cup finals take place November 21 to December 18.