Poland Refused to Play Russia Once. It May Have to Do So Again.

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 making ready for membership video games that weekend, however his query couldn’t wait.

They’d all seen the footage rising from Ukraine: Russian tanks rolling throughout the border, Russian artillery bombarding cities and cities, Ukrainian refugees flooding in a foreign country, a whole lot of 1000’s of them searching 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 wished to understand how his teammates felt.

With out exception, the reply was emphatic. Lewandowski didn’t, he stated in an interview, “should persuade anybody.” The dialog he had with Wojciech Szczesny, the Juventus goalkeeper who has been one in every of 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 might not take the sector in opposition to 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 because of this. “We didn’t take into consideration the implications or whether or not we is likely to be punished,” Szczesny stated. “We solely cared in regards to the end result. We had been ready to forfeit the sport. We weren’t going to play.”

The federation readily acceded to the gamers’ determination. 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 might 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 power FIFA’s hand. The group had, for a lot of the primary week of the invasion, been studiously quiet with 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 attempting for a number of days to power FIFA to decide to a place. They’d 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 means 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 house soil, and below its personal flag. Aside from that, it might 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 is not going to play Russia in any respect, whatever the identify they play below or the place the venue is likely to be.” By the following Monday, Feb. 28, FIFA had reversed course fully. 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 international gamers on Russian groups can be allowed to interrupt their contracts and full the season elsewhere.

That it was the intervention of the gamers that broke the bureaucratic impasse was important, significantly 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 likely to be thought-about a political concern. That has began to alter, 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 elevate 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 power the nation’s Conservative authorities right into a collection of humiliating climb-downs on the difficulty 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 completed so individually, too. To Szczesny — whose accomplice is of Ukrainian heritage — that may be a responsibility that comes with their profile and platform. “Social media helps us loads, after all, however meaning it’s important to be ready to talk up about these items,” he stated. “We’ve got to be among the many first to face up and converse out.”

Lewandowski, too, is adamant that the game and the folks that play it have a “accountability” to make their voices heard. “That’s vital,” he stated in an e mail. “Soccer is the most well-liked sport on the earth. 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 responsibility, that conviction, is unlikely to wane, no matter whether or not Russia’s enchantment succeeds at CAS. Poland’s gamers had been completely happy to sacrifice a spot within the World Cup to do the fitting factor as soon as. There isn’t any cause to imagine they might not achieve this once more.