“If Russia moves to the AFC, I’m afraid that it will be difficult to go back”
Baltika Kaliningrad General Director Kirill Volzhenkin believes that if the Russian Football Union (RFU) moves to the Asian Football Confederation (AFC), it will be difficult to return to FIFA and UEFA.
At the end of November, RFU President Alexander Dyukov announced that on December 23 the executive committee of the organization would consider the issue of Russia’s transition to the AFC.
– Another big topic this fall is the possible transfer of the RFU to the Asian Football Confederation. Do you see in this sense? Are there any risks that Russian clubs are still not soldiers in the fight for victory in the Champions League and the AFC Cup, according to the Confederation to FIFA?
— I have an ambiguous attitude. FIFA is not developing, interaction is ongoing, there is no obvious rejection, as far as I understand. The next question is with UEFA – there are sentiments that some teams do not want to play with us. Asians, as I understand it, for the most part do not care. In any case, it would be interesting from the point of view of entertainment, – Metaratings.ru quotes Volzhenkin.
– How do you imagine if the Baltic, for example, in five years is used in some “Asia Cup” and you have to fly to some game in Japan or even Australia?
– We have a football player Dmitry Barkov, he played in Tajikistan, in a game that took part in one of the international cups. He talks a lot about great meetings, how they flew to play in India and the Philippines, how interesting it was and how different from the football culture we are used to. It’s clear that Liverpool and Bayern are cool to play with, but if we don’t have the opportunity now, why not play in the new reality? It’s interesting from the fans’ point of view.
From the point of view of logistics, costs and convenience for the players, this is, of course, a disaster. You correctly say that flying from Moscow or St. Petersburg, not to mention Kaliningrad, to Tokyo, Bangkok, Seoul or Sydney, playing a match is very difficult. The Asian Confederation is probably talking about it, because they also have to fly on the observed side. If you take a pragmatic approach – it’s terrible. In addition, I am afraid that if we go there, it will be difficult to go back.
The Russian national team and FIFA and UEFA club decisions have been suspended from participation in international competitions due to the situation in Ukraine.