One after the other, late on a Friday night, Robert Lewandowski referred to as his Poland teammates. They had been scattered throughout Europe, and most of them had been busily getting ready for membership video games that weekend, however his query couldn’t wait.
That they had all seen the footage rising from Ukraine: Russian tanks rolling throughout the border, Russian artillery bombarding cities and cities, Ukrainian refugees flooding in another country, a whole lot of hundreds of them looking for shelter in Poland.
In a matter of weeks, Poland was scheduled to face Russia in a vital World Cup qualifier. Lewandowski had identified instantly, as soon as the invasion of Ukraine had begun, that he didn’t need the sport in late March to go forward. He had already referred to as the president of the Polish soccer federation and made that clear. Now he needed to know the way his teammates felt.
With out exception, the reply was emphatic. Lewandowski didn’t, he stated in an interview, “need to persuade anybody.” The dialog he had with Wojciech Szczesny, the Juventus goalkeeper who has been one among Lewandowski’s Poland teammates for greater than a decade, was typical. “I simply stated, ‘I’m not enjoying the sport,’” Szczesny stated. “That was how he felt, too. All of us stated the identical factor.”
After ending his calls late on that February night time, Lewandowski — the Poland captain and, by a long way, his nation’s most high-profile athlete — relayed his conversations to executives on the federation. The gamers, he stated, had been unanimous: They’d not take the sector towards Russia. It didn’t matter if the sport was held on impartial territory or if Russia performed it below a impartial flag.
It didn’t even matter to them if Poland was thrown out of the World Cup consequently. “We didn’t take into consideration the implications or whether or not we is perhaps punished,” Szczesny stated. “We solely cared in regards to the consequence. We had been ready to forfeit the sport. We weren’t going to play.”
The federation readily acceded to the gamers’ resolution. They instructed Lewandowski they might relay a message to FIFA, world soccer’s governing physique, the following morning to tell the group of the Polish place. “We stated that on Saturday we’d announce there can be no video games in any respect with Russia,” Jakub Kwiatkowski, the final supervisor of the Polish males’s nationwide group, instructed the BBC.
The transfer appeared to drive FIFA’s hand. The group had, for a lot of the primary week of the invasion, been studiously quiet as regards to whether or not Russia — or any of its membership groups — can be allowed to proceed to play both in World Cup qualifying or in competitions below the auspices of UEFA, European soccer’s governing physique.
The Polish authorities had been making an attempt for a number of days to drive FIFA to decide to a place. That they had already despatched the governing physique two letters: one wherein it confirmed that Poland would refuse to play video games in Russia, and one wherein Sweden and the Czech Republic — the 2 different groups that stand in Poland’s approach of a spot on the World Cup this winter — joined its boycott. “There was no response,” Kwiatkowski stated.
It took a number of extra days for FIFA to reply in any respect, and when it did so it “didn’t go far sufficient,” Szczesny stated. FIFA’s preliminary punishment prevented Russia solely from enjoying on dwelling soil, and below its personal flag. Apart from that, it could be free to compete. “It didn’t go down very effectively with the gamers,” Szczesny stated. “It was not sufficient.”
FIFA’s place modified shortly as soon as the vehemence of the Polish gamers’ opposition grew to become clear. “We despatched them a press release that was very clear,” Kwiatkowski stated. “We won’t play Russia in any respect, whatever the identify they play below or the place the venue is perhaps.” By the following Monday, Feb. 28, FIFA had reversed course utterly. Russia and Russian golf equipment, it declared, would not be capable to play in its competitions, or in UEFA occasions. A subsequent ruling would decree that overseas gamers on Russian groups can be allowed to interrupt their contracts and full the season elsewhere.
Russia-Ukraine Warfare: Key Issues to Know
That it was the intervention of the gamers that broke the bureaucratic impasse was important, notably as Russia prepares to contest its sporting isolation at the Court of Arbitration for Sport, the secretive, unelected judicial physique that serves as a form of voluntary excessive court docket for sporting issues.
Historically, for all their fame, soccer’s main stars have proved reluctant to contain themselves in something that is perhaps thought-about a political concern. That has began to vary, although, within the aftermath of each the coronavirus pandemic and the broader Black Lives Matter motion. Gamers within the Premier League in England proceed to take the knee earlier than video games, a gesture that was first adopted, in European soccer, by gamers within the Bundesliga in Germany.
Jordan Henderson, the Liverpool captain, spearheaded a marketing campaign to assist increase donations for the Nationwide Well being Service on the peak of the pandemic, after crude makes an attempt by lawmakers in Britain to decry soccer gamers as grasping mercenaries. Marcus Rashford, the Manchester United striker, managed to drive the nation’s Conservative authorities right into a sequence of humiliating climb-downs on the problem of kid meals poverty.
Whereas soccer has staged varied initiatives to exhibit its solidarity with Ukraine within the days and weeks after the Russian invasion, plenty of gamers have executed so individually, too. To Szczesny — whose associate is of Ukrainian heritage — that may be a obligation that comes with their profile and platform. “Social media helps us quite a bit, in fact, however which means you must be ready to talk up about this stuff,” he stated. “We’ve got to be among the many first to face up and communicate out.”
Lewandowski, too, is adamant that the game and the folks that play it have a “accountability” to make their voices heard. “That’s essential,” he stated in an electronic mail. “Soccer is the preferred sport on this planet. It’s extra than simply leisure. However it’s greater than a part of our job. It’s primarily a matter of decency.”
That sense of obligation, that conviction, is unlikely to wane, no matter whether or not Russia’s attraction succeeds at CAS. Poland’s gamers had been comfortable to sacrifice a spot within the World Cup to do the proper factor as soon as. There isn’t any cause to consider they might not accomplish that once more.
