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Russian football friendlies next month against Syria, Brunei to be documented by FIFA

The Russian national football team is currently 34th in the world’s governing body of football World Ranking

MOSCOW, October 24. /TASS/. Friendly football matches between the national teams representing Russia, Brunei and Syria next month will be officially registered by the world’s governing body of football, FIFA, the Russian Football Union’s (RFU) press office told TASS on Thursday.

"Russia-Brunei national teams’ [friendly] match as well as Russia-Syria friendly match will be officially registered by the world’s governing body of football [FIFA]," according to the RFU’s statement.

Earlier in the day, the Syrian Football Association’s (SFA) announced that it inked with the Russian Football Union (RFU) an agreement to hold a friendly football match in Russia’s Volgograd on November 19.

The 45,000-seat Volgograd-Arena was built for the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia and hosted four group stage matches of the world football championship.

Volgograd, formerly known as Stalingrad, has a population of over one million people, situated along the Volga River. The city and the surrounding areas were the scene of the fiercest battles of World War II, including the Battle of Stalingrad, which was widely considered to be the turning point in the war.

Later in the day, the RFU press office also announced that the Russian national football team was scheduled to play a friendly match against the team from Brunei and the game will be held in the country’s southern city of Krasnodar on November 15.

The Russian national football team is currently 34th in the world’s governing body of football (FIFA) World Ranking and Syria occupies the 93rd position of the ratings list. In their previous encounter, the USSR (the Soviet Union) defeated Syria 2-0 on their home turf in Damascus in 1988.

The national football team of Brunei occupies the 184th position of the FIFA World Rankings list and it never played against the Russian team.

Russia’s football ban

The International Association Football Federation (FIFA) announced on February 28, 2022 that the Russian national team and all professional clubs representing the country were barred from taking part in FIFA tournaments.

In turn, the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) made a similar decision in regard to the Russian national football team’s participation in UEFA tournaments.

Both FIFA and UEFA cited Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine as grounds for their respective bans on Russian teams’ participation in competitions.

Since sanctions were introduced, the Russian national football squad has played a host of friendlies against other countries, namely against Kyrgyzstan (2-1), Tajikistan (0-0), Uzbekistan (0-0), Iran (1-1), Iraq (2-0), Cameroon (1-0), Kenya (2-2), Cuba (8-0), Serbia (4-0) Belarus 4-0 and Vietnam (3-0).

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