Netherlands need time to mourn before talk of World Cup 2018 in Russia

While country comes to grips with tragedy of the Malaysian Airlines MH17, the Netherlands football association says it it too early to make call on World Cup 2018 and Shakhtar Donetsk pull out of eastern Ukraine.

Netherlands players Arjen Robben, left, Georginio Wijnaldum and Wesley Sneijder are thinking about other things besides football. Nelson Almeida / AFP

The Dutch football association (KNVB) wants to postpone discussion over participation in the next World Cup in Russia as an angry country on Wednesday mourned victims of the Malaysian airliner shot down over Ukraine by Russian-backed separatists on a flight from Amsterdam last week.

The KNVB said in a statement it had received many questions over playing in the 2018 World Cup in Russia but felt a debate should be delayed while the country observed a national day of mourning.

All 298 people on board the Malaysian Airlines MH17 died when it was brought down last Thursday over rebel-held territory in eastern Ukraine, where Kiev is struggling to quell a pro-Russian separatist rebellion.

Two-thirds of the victims were Dutch and the disaster has led to calls for strong sanctions against Russia, even if it hurts the Dutch economy, opinion polls published yesterday showed.

“The association is well aware that a future World Cup in Russia will stir a lot of emotion among football lovers and the next of kin in the -Netherlands,” the KNVB said.

“Standing still to remember our enormous loss is now the priority. The KNVB believes it would be more appropriate to hold the discussion over the future World Cup in Russia at a later time once the investigation into the disaster is completed.”

The Netherlands finished third at the World Cup in Brazil this month, but a national mood of euphoria has been replaced by shock, grief and anger. With 193 of the dead from the Netherlands, Frans Timmermans, the foreign minister, said almost every family in the country of 15 million knew someone who had died, or the relatives of the dead.

German politicians on Wednesday called on Fifa to move the World Cup from Russia.

“As long as Russian President Vladimir Putin is not an active participant in the investigation into the horror event and does not work against the separatists to ensure an immediate end to the conflict, a major sporting event like the World Cup in Russia in 2018 is unimaginable,” said Peter Beuth, chairman of the conference of sports ministers from Germany’s regional states.

Georg Streiter, a German government spokesman, noted that the tournament is four years away. He said: “We have more pressing problems now than this.”

Fifa says it is in contact with the Russian and Ukrainian football federations, and is not “in a position to comment further”.

Meanwhile, Shakhtar Donetsk will shift their headquarters to Kiev and play their Uefa Champions League and domestic games in the western city of Lviv to escape from the Ukraine’s strife-torn east.

The Ukraine champions were forced to move from Donetsk, a major industrial city in the East which has become a stronghold of pro-Russian separatists who are fighting army forces controlled by the government.

Offered a choice of four venues by Uefa, Shakhtar chose to play their games at Lviv Arena, a stadium that hosted matches during the European championship in 2012.

Shakhtar opened the new season with a 2-0 win at rivals Dynamo Kiev in the Super Cup game in Lviv on Tuesday.

Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk have also moved the first leg of their Champions League qualifier against FC Copenhagen to Kiev.

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