Present on Sunday 9 October in Frankfurt for the draw for the 2024 Euro football qualifiers, Ukrainian coach Oleksandr Petrakov (pictured above) spoke to the media about a possible reinstatement of the Russians in international competitions. “We are strongly opposed to it,” he said. “How could they compete while their military is killing our children, our women, our men? The whole of society would not allow them to compete when they are doing that. We’ve said it before, and we hope it won’t be allowed, until the war is over, until they are out of Ukraine. And the Russian athletes have supported Putin and have made that clear, so I don’t think that’s possible.” As Thomas Bach explained earlier this month in an interview with the Italian daily Corriere della Sera, the IOC is currently working on how to reinstate Russian athletes in international competitions, especially in view of the qualifications for the Paris 2024 Games. But the German leader made it clear: only those athletes who would not support Vladimir Putin and the conflict in Ukraine.
