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European football’s governing body UEFA said Tuesday it had abandoned plans to re-admit Russian under-17 teams into the youth European Championship next year.
“No technical solution to allow Russian teams to play could be found,” UEFA said.
In September, UEFA reinstated Russian youth teams to its competitions, having suspended the country’s senior sides due to the ongoing war in Ukraine.
Many football federations were angered by this decision, including the Ukrainian football federation, which was joined by at least 11 other federations out of the 55 UEFA members, stating they would boycott all competitions involving a Russian team.
The reversal decision was made at a meeting Tuesday that was attended by UEFA Senior Vice President Karl-Erik Nilsson, who lost his job as the head of the Sweden sports confederation days ago for backing UEFA’s pro-Russian move. Nilsson faced pressure from his home federation, which opposed the inclusion of Russian teams.
UEFA has awarded hosting rights to its 2028 European championship to the United Kingdom and Ireland, both of which had their football federations threaten boycotts of games against Russian sides.
Aleksandr Dyukov, the Russian delegate on the UEFA executive committee, did not attend the meeting. The Russian football union has made no immediate comments.
On Tuesday, Kyiv thanked UEFA for scrapping the plans.