Russian national football team unexpectedly withdraws from tournament in Asia

The Russian national team is likely to refuse to participate in the Central Asian Football Federation's CAFA-2023 championship. At the same time, nothing is known about the reasons for this decision, but it can be assumed that representatives of the aggressor country were afraid of deteriorating relations with Europe.

Such data is available to Sport-Express. It calls the refusal of the Russians to go to Bishkek and Tashkent the most likely development, recalling that since February 202, teams from the Russian Federation have been suspended from tournaments of the European Football Union (UEFA) and the International Football Federation (FIFA).

Since then, the Russian national team has played five friendly matches against Asian teams - Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Iran and Iraq. In these games, Valery Karpin's men won two and drew three times.

Earlier, the Russian coach himself called the team's participation in the first CAFA Championship inappropriate. He called it suicide for his players.

As OBOZREVATEL previously reported, Russia's top scorer Alexander Kerzhakov said he was "scared" of the war in Ukraine.

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