MOSCOW, February 5. /TASS/. Russia could play a football friendly against Turkey this year, but only if it makes sense schedule-wise, Alexander Dyukov, the president of the Russian Football Union (RFU), told TASS on Wednesday.
Russian Sports Minister Mikhail Degtyarev said in an interview with Russia’s Rossiya-24 television channel in late December that the football federations of Russia and Turkey were in talks to hold a friendly football match in 2025.
"I said already that we would only comment on national team matches after agreements are reached and contracts signed," Dyukov said.
"A [friendly] match against Turkey is theoretically possible, but it will all depend on the schedule," the head of Russia’s governing football body added.
In mid-January, the Russian Football Union published its calendar of sports events for 2025. According to the calendar, the Russian national football squad will play ten friendlies this year, eight of them at home.
Russia’s opponents were not specified in the calendar. It did state, however, that Russia will play a friendly in Asia between March 21 and 25 and go to Africa for another one some time between November 14-18.
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 also supposed to play against Thailand at a football tournament in Vietnam but the match was cancelled due to poor weather 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.