The desire of officials from the aggressor country to invite teams from temporarily occupied Crimea to competitions on Russian Federation territory has not gone unnoticed by the Ukrainian Football Association (UAF). Over the past six months, UAF has repeatedly responded to such detrimental initiatives, reaffirming its position in official letters addressed to FIFA President Gianni Infantino and UEFA President Aleksander Čeferin.

"We have drawn your attention to the latest illegal actions of the Russian terrorist state and the Russian Football Union (RFU) against Ukraine and football, including attempts to integrate football clubs from temporarily occupied regions of Ukraine into regular national championships in Russia."

Recently, open sources reported that FC "Sevastopol" from temporarily occupied Crimea received a certificate for participation in the second league of Russia (third-tier division). The relevant decision was made at a meeting of the Russian National Football League. It is also noted that Russian officials plan to invite teams from Crimea—«TSC-Tavria,» «Rubin,» and «Ocean»—to their competitions. All these teams come from territories that were given special status by UEFA in 2014.

The permission to carry out such actions effectively demonstrates disregard for the positions and decisions of FIFA and UEFA, tolerance towards war crimes committed by the Russian Federation against Ukraine, and contempt for human rights and laws of civilized society.

In connection with this, UAF insists that FIFA and UEFA consider this illegal process of absorption of Ukrainian football entities by Russian stakeholders, take measures, and seek ways to prevent its development in the future. We also appeal to FIFA and UEFA to consider the possibility of depriving the RFU of membership in FIFA and UEFA due to proven non-compliance with the requirements of the statutes of the governing bodies of world and European football and values of the global football family,"—especially, this is mentioned in UAF's June letter.