Russian football club reacts after being sanctioned by US
Russian football club CSKA Moscow says it will “continue to function normally” after being added to a US sanctions list as part of Washington’s retaliatory measures amid tensions in Ukraine.
The US Treasury Department announced the move on Tuesday after Russia formally recognized the breakaway Donbass regions of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) and Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR).
Reacting to the news, CSKA general director Roman Babayev said the step was “unexpected” but asserted that it would not affect the team’s preparations for the resumption of the Russian Premier League season this weekend.
CSKA is set to face bitter rivals Spartak in the Moscow derby on Saturday, in what will be the team’s first league game since the winter break in mid-December.
“Certainly this is quite unexpected news for the club and our many fans,” Babayev told Sport-Express.
“However, the club continues to function normally, the team is calmly preparing for the resumption of the season and Saturday’s derby, and our lawyers understand the situation.
“We will defend our rights based on the generally accepted thesis that ‘sport should be outside of politics.’”
CSKA – whose abbreviation is derived from ‘Central Sports Club of the Army’ – was founded in 1911 and is part of the broader CSKA sporting organization. The club is 13-time Soviet/Russian champions and won the UEFA Cup and UEFA Super Cup in 2005.
The club was included among the entities sanctioned by the US because it is majority-owned by Russian state-run development and investment agency Vnesheconombank (VEB).
VEB acquired a majority stake of almost 78% of CSKA in 2020, and the team is based at the VEB Arena in downtown Moscow.
CSKA is not the only Russian football team to be under sanctions from the US. Washington placed Akhmat Grozny on its list in December 2020 because of ties with Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov.
Announcing new anti-Russian measures this week, the US Treasury said it is “targeting Russia’s ability to finance aggression against its neighbors,” adding that CSKA owner VEB is “crucial to Russia’s ability to raise funds.”
The Russian Foreign Ministry has said Moscow will issue “a strong response, not necessarily symmetrical, but a calculated one whose impact the US will feel.”
