UN, December 19. /TASS/. Budapest hopes that the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) will reconsider its stance decision regarding Russia and allow the country’s teams to participate in international tournaments, Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Peter Szijjarto told TASS on Friday.

"It would be great if Russian football teams return to European tournaments again. I hope the UEFA would review its decision," Szijjarto stated.

"As you may know, Belarus is playing its home games in Hungary, they have not been excluded from [European football] competitions, they are simply not allowed to play matches on their home turf," the Hungarian minister continued.

"So we serve as the home field for Belarus. We hope that Russian football teams will be able to participate in international competitions again as soon as possible," Szijjarto added.

The 2028 UEFA Euro Cup will be hosted by England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales between June 9 and July 9. The qualifiers for the quadrennial European football championship will be played in 2027.

The 2024 UEFA Euro Cup was hosted by Germany between June 14 and July 14, with the matches of this prestigious European football tournament being played at German stadiums in Berlin, Dortmund, Munich, Cologne, Stuttgart, Hamburg, Leipzig, Frankfurt, Gelsenkirchen and Dusseldorf.

Russia did not participate in the previous UEFA Euro Cup due to current restrictions against the country’s football authorities.

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.