FIFA and the European association, UEFA, issued a joint statement on Monday confirming that Russia has been suspended until further notice, ESPN reported.
“Following the initial decisions adopted by the FIFA Council and the UEFA Executive Committee, which envisaged the adoption of additional measures,” the statement read, “FIFA and UEFA have today decided together that all Russian teams, whether national representative teams or club teams, shall be suspended from participation in both FIFA and UEFA competitions until further notice.
“These decisions were adopted today by the Bureau of the FIFA Council and the Executive Committee of UEFA, respectively the highest decision-making bodies of both institutions on such urgent matters,” FIFA added.
“Football is fully united here and in full solidarity with all the people affected in Ukraine. Both Presidents hope that the situation in Ukraine will improve significantly and rapidly so that football can again be a vector for unity and peace amongst people,” the statement said.
FIFA added that the ban was effective immediately.
The decision comes only a day after FIFA had insisted that it would not ban the Russian national team from the tournament.
FIFA’s initial ruling was that the team would have to play under the name “RFU,” or the “Russian Football Union,” and could neither use Russia’s flag nor its national anthem.
UEFA also announced that it was cancelling its deals with Russian energy giant, Gazprom.
FIFA’s decision also comes on the heels of announcements by the British, Polish, Swedish, and Czech soccer federations that they intended to boycott games against Russia.