Russia wants its football team kept separate from Kosovo in draws

The Russian Football Union (RFU) plans to submit a request with Europe's governing body UEFA asking the organisation to separate the country's national team from the Kosovan team during the draw procedures of the European tournaments, its president Vitaly Mutko said on Thursday.

UEFA's secretary general Theodor Theodoridis earlier said that the Serbian and some other national football organisations requested UEFA to separate them in different groups with Kosovo during seeding procedures of European tournaments, reports Tass.

"Russia will definitely submit (with UEFA) such request," Mutko, who is also the Russian minister of sports, said.

The Football Federation of Kosovo was admitted to UEFA at the organisation's Congress on May 3.

The UEFA Congress approved the decision by a 28 majority vote, while 24 UEFA members, including the Russian Football Union, voted against. Two ballot papers were declared void.

The Republic of Kosovo is recognised partially. It is not a member of the United Nations. A total of 64 states, including Russia, China, India and Brazil do not recognize Kosovo.

At the December 2014 session of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), Kosovo's National Olympic Committee was unanimously granted the right to become a full-fledged member of the Olympic movement.

After that a number of sports federations (of track and field athletics, basketball, volleyball, cycling and chess) of the self-proclaimed Kosovo Republic received temporary or permanent membership of the respective international organisations.

--IANS

sam/vt