Euro 2024: Russia Banned From Qualifying Draw

Russia will be banned from Euro 2024 as the country's isolation from international sport continues over the war in Ukraine.

The country has been suspended from UEFA and FIFA competitions since Vladimir Putin's military launched its invasion of Ukraine in February and has now been excluded from qualifying for the competition.

The Court of Arbitration for Sport dismissed an appeal from Russia against the ban back in July.

UEFA confirmed on Tuesday that Russia will not be in the qualifying draw, which is scheduled to take place in Frankfurt on October 9. Host nation Germany will qualify automatically for the tournament.

A UEFA statement read: 'All Russian teams are currently suspended following the decision of the UEFA Executive Committee of 28 February 2022 which has further been confirmed by the Court of Arbitration for Sport on 15 July 2022.

'Russia is therefore not included in the UEFA European Football Championship 2022-24 qualifying draw.'

However, UEFA confirmed that Belarus, who have been allied with Russia during their invasion of Ukraine, will be included in the qualifying draw at this stage. 

UEFA has banned both the Russian national team from playing in official matches and all Russian club sides from competing in the Champions League, Europa League and Europa Conference League this season. 

As a result of Russia's exclusion and Germany's automatic qualification, the 53 remaining nations will be allocated into seven groups of five teams and three groups of six teams.

The 10 group winners and 10 runners-up advance to the finals while the remaining three spots will be decided via play-offs to be played in March 2024.

The 53 nations involved will be seeded according to the overall 2022-2023 UEFA Nations League rankings and split into seven pots.

It came as UEFA fined and issued a warning to the coach of the Ukrainian national team, Oleksandr Petrakov, after he said he was willing to shoot invading Russian soldiers in Kyiv.

Petrakov, 65, told the Guardian back in April that 'if they come to Kyiv , I will pick up a weapon and defend my city', adding 'I think I could take two or three enemies out.'

It led to the Russian Football Union writing to UEFA accusing Petrakov of discriminating against their country and failing to remain politically neutral, calling on him to be banned.

But in a Facebook post, the head of the Ukrainian Football Association, Andrii Pavelko, wrote that UEFA simply warned Petrakov and issued a small fine, which the organisation paid on his behalf.

September 21, 2022