MOSCOW, January 14. /TASS/. President of the Russian Football Union (RFU) Alexander Dyukov has entered the final list of candidates running for the seats in the Executive Committee of the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA), the European governing football body announced in a statement on Thursday.

According to the statement, a total of nine candidates were registered to run in the elections for the eight-seat UEFA Executive Committee. The Executive Board will be elected at the 45th UEFA Ordinary Congress in Montreux, Switzerland, on April 20, 2021.

"By the set deadline of Saturday 2 January 2021, the UEFA Administration has received the… nine candidatures… for the eight members of the UEFA Executive Committee to be elected (each for a four-year term) at the 45th Ordinary UEFA Congress," the statement reads.

The rest of the candidates besides Dyukov are: Mehdi Bayat (Belgium), Zbigniew Boniek (Poland), David Gill (England), Gabriele Gabrina (Italy), Rainer Koch (Germany), Karl-Erik Nilsson (Sweden), Just Spee (the Netherlands), Servet Yardimci (Turkey).

"All of the above-mentioned candidates have successfully passed the requisite eligibility check carried out by the UEFA Governance and Compliance Committee," the statement added.

Dyukov,53, the chief executive of Russian oil major Gazprom Neft and ex-chairman of the Board of Directors of Zenit St. Petersburg football club, was elected president of the Russian Football Union in February 2019.

In the period between 2008 and 2017, Dyukov also served as the president of Zenit St. Petersburg FC. During this period, the football club from Russia’s second largest city won three national football championships (2010, 2012, 2015), took two Russia Cups (2010, 2016) and also won the 2008 UEFA Cup and the 2008 UEFA Super Cup.

One of Russia’s representatives in the UEFA Executive Committee at the moment is Alexei Sorokin, who serves there as a member of the FIFA (the International Association of Football Federations) Council.