World Cup boycott calls 'nonsense' says senior FIFA official
Fifa secretary general Jerome Valcke has said a boycott of the 2018 World Cup in Russia would be “nonsense”.
Some European politicians have suggested that European countries could boycott the World Cup over the conflict in eastern Ukraine, which many Western governments accuse Russia of provoking.
Mr Valcke said talk of a boycott is an attempt to “provoke” discord rather than “to be realistic on what the world is today”.
He said the World Cup “is a sporting event” and has “nothing to do with politics”.
Mr Valcke spoke after meeting with Russian World Cup organisers in Sochi.
He is the first senior Fifa official to visit Russia since last week’s publication of a report by Fifa ethics judge Joachim Eckert that closed the probe of the 2018 and 2022 World Cup bidding contests.
