MOSCOW, January 20. /TASS/. The Russian national football team is scheduled to play friendly matches in Asia and Africa this year, according to the Russian Football Union’s (RFU) calendar of sports events in 2025 published by the body’s press office on Monday.
Russia’s opponents were not specified in the calendar, which states that a friendly match will be held in Asia between March 21 and 25 and a friendly in Africa has been slated for the period of November 14-18.
In all, the country’s national squad will play ten friendlies this year, eight of them at home, the RFU’s press service added.
Last year, Russia played five friendly football matches, three of them at home. The national squad played against Serbia (4-0), Belarus (4-0), Vietnam (3-0), Brunei (11-0) and Syria 4-0).
The team was also scheduled to play last year against Thailand at a friendly football tournament in Vietnam but the match was cancelled due to poor weather conditions in Hanoi.
Russia’s football ban
The world’s governing football body, FIFA, announced on February 28, 2022, that the Russian national team and all professional clubs representing the country were barred from participating in FIFA tournaments.
In turn, the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) made a similar decision regarding 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.