Ukraine's top club urges FIFA to remove Iran from 2022 World Cup

Shakhtar's chief executive wants the Asian side to be moved out of the tournament starting in a few week's time

Ukraine's top football club, Shakhtar Donetsk, on Monday urged FIFA to remove Iran from the 2022 Qatar World Cup because of the country’s alleged military support to the Russian invasion. Shakhtar Donetsk chief executive Sergei Palkin accused Iran of direct participation in terrorist attacks on Ukrainians. Suggesting his own country's team should play in Qatar instead as a replacement.

FIFA did not immediately respond to a request for comment. He further said that "This will be a fair decision that should draw the attention of the whole world to a regime that kills its best people and helps kill Ukrainians. Facilitating the participation of terrorists in the World Cup is politics. Its time to put an end to such policy". However, if an Asian team was suspended there would be no precedent for FIFA to replace it with a European team at the World Cup.

FIFA has suspended Russian teams following its invasion of Ukraine. This also barred Russia from playing in the World Cup qualifying playoffs in March. FIFA normally only suspends national teams when the country’s government is judged to have interfered in the independent running of the national soccer federation. Iran will begin their World Cup campaign against England on November 21. 

Wales qualified by beating Ukraine in the playoffs in June. In a game that was delayed from March by the war. It will be interesting to see how FIFA will be dealing with this situation as Iran is also facing the problems of strong protests.