Several senior German lawmakers yesterday raised the possibility of stripping Russia of its right to host the 2018 World Cup and the national soccer federation said it was very worried about events following the downing of a passenger plane over Ukraine.
Western states have blamed pro-Russian separatists battling Kiev’s forces in eastern Ukraine for the downing of the Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 on July 17 in which 298 people were killed.
The EU has threatened to impose harsher economic sanctions on Russia, though on Tuesday ministers delayed action for a few days.
Taking away Russia’s right to hold the soccer tournament may have a significantly greater impact than more economic sanctions, said Michael Fuchs, deputy head of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative bloc in the German Parliament.
“The FIFA football association should think about whether Moscow is an appropriate host if it can’t even guarantee safe airways,” Fuchs told Handelsblatt Online, adding that Germany and France could take over the tournament if needed.
It would be unprecedented for the footballing world to deprive a country of hosting the World Cup once it has been awarded. Russia was selected in 2010 to host the event.
Withdrawing the World Cup from Russia should not be taboo
But Peter Beuth, interior minister of the state of Hesse, told top-selling Bild daily that staging the World Cup in Russia in 2018 would be “unimaginable” if Russian President Vladimir Putin did not actively cooperate with the crash investigation.
Withdrawing the World Cup from Russia “should not be taboo”, said Stephan Mayer, a member of Bavaria’s conservative Christian Social Union (CSU).
Germany’s DFB football federation president Wolfgang Niersbach said Germany, which won the World Cup in Brazil this month, had very good relations with the Russian football association and the World Cup organisation committee.
“But we are watching with very great concern political events in Russia which could not be predicted at the time of the awarding of the World Cup in 2010,” he added in a statement which stopped short of backing Russia’s right to host.
FIFA said earlier this week it could not comment.
However, Germany’s FIFA executive committee member, Theo Zwanziger, played down the possibility of moving the tournament.
“The World Cup has been awarded to Russia, contracts have been signed and rights issued,” Zwanziger told Handelsblatt.
He also rejected any calls for a boycott.
“Sport must go places even if it is painful. Only then can it stand up for its values and convictions such as tolerance, fairness and peaceful cooperation,” said Zwanziger.
Several Western nations, including the US, boycotted the Moscow Olympic Games in 1980, in protest against the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan.
Russia hosted the Winter Olympics in the Black Sea resort of Sochi in February shortly before relations between Western nations and Russia deteriorated sharply due to the Ukraine crisis and the Russian takeover of the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine.
Trade groups in Germany have been cautious and they added that new EU sanctions could hurt business between Russia and Europe’s biggest economy.
The Malaysian plane had been flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur when it was shot down near Donetsk, a stronghold of pro-Russian rebels.
In the Netherlands, where many of the passengers came from and where relatives of the victims are still under shock, the Dutch football association said it was too early to review Russia’s hosting of the 2018 World Cup.