Coach Slutsky called football the most politicized sport

Football is more influenced by politics than other sports. This opinion was expressed on March 30 by the head coach of Shanghai Shenhua, Leonid Slutsky.

"Football is the most popular sport and the most politicized. <...> For example, I am currently working in China, and we had a case when the Prime Minister of Japan spoke about the political situation between Taiwan and China, and we closed the sale of tickets for matches, fearing the insinuations that could occur in the game," the coach said in an interview with TASS.

Slutsky added that similar situations have also happened in Russia: athletes participated in elections or campaigns, and matches were timed to coincide with the City Day. According to him, football depends on political intrigues more than other sports, and he himself has repeatedly been a victim.

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RTL Nieuws TV channel reported on March 24 that more than 170,000 people in the Netherlands had signed a petition calling for a boycott of the 2026 FIFA World Cup due to the policies of US President Donald Trump.

Artyom Dzyuba, a forward of the Tolyatti football club (FC) Akron, noted on March 12 that representatives of the International Federation of Football Associations (FIFA) would not suspend the American and Israeli national teams from the competition. Accordingly, the football player answered the question about a possible sense of injustice from the fact that the designated teams were not suspended, unlike the Russian team.

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