UEFA on Friday voted to move this season’s Champions League final to Paris as punishment for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The final on May 28, had been scheduled to be played in St. Petersburg, in a stadium built for 2018 World Cup and financed by the Russian energy giant Gazprom, a major UEFA sponsor.
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Instead it will take place at the Stade de France, in the northern Paris suburb of Saint-Denis. It will be the first time France has hosted the final since 2006.
UEFA also decided that it would relocate any games in tournaments it controls that were to be played in Russia and Ukraine, whether involving clubs or national teams. At the moment, that affects only a single club match: Spartak Moscow’s next home game in the second-tier Europa League.
But UEFA’s move to punish Russia will put new pressure on world soccer’s governing body, FIFA, to move a World Cup qualifying match set for Moscow next month.
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On Thursday the soccer federations from Poland, Czech Republic and Sweden wrote to FIFA calling for Russia to be banned from hosting playoff games for the 2022 World Cup that are scheduled for next month. Poland is scheduled to play Russia in Moscow on March 24. If Russia wins that game, it would host the winner of the game between the Czechs and Sweden in a match to decide one of Europe’s final places in the World Cup in Qatar later this year.