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Russian football officials plan attending 2026 UEFA, FIFA Congress sessions — RFU

The 2026 UEFA Congress is set to take place in Brussels on February 12 and the 2026 FIFA Congress is slated to be held on April 30 in Canada’s Vancouver

MOSCOW, December 25. /TASS/. Officials from the Russian Football Union (RFU) plan to attend next year congress meetings of the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) and world’s governing football body, FIFA, RFU Secretary General Maxim Mitrofanov told TASS on Thursday.

The 2026 UEFA Congress is set to take place in Brussels on February 12 and the 2026 FIFA Congress is slated to be held on April 30 in Canada’s Vancouver.

"The RFU will participate in the [UEFA, FIFA] Congresses if our representatives are granted with entry visas," Mitrofanov said. "However, such Congress meetings are of technical nature."

"There is already an agenda that had been previously agreed upon. It should be viewed in general as one of the events where people can meet," he continued.

"A draw procedure [for the UEFA League of Nations] is important for the [2028 Euro Cup] qualifiers, while the FIFA Congress with 211 countries participating is more of a protocol event," Motrofanov 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 2026 FIFA World Cup will be co-hosted by Canada, Mexico and the United States. The matches will be staged in 16 cities across the three countries. This will be the first FIFA World Cup featuring 48 teams instead of the previous 32-team format.

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.

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