'Only about football': Berlin club to face Russian teams in U19 games

The under-19 team of German fifth division club Berliner AK will play friendly matches against junior sides of Russian clubs Spartak Moscow and Krasnodar during an upcoming training camp in Turkey.

The Berlin club said on Instagram they would play Spartak on January 28 and Krasnodar two days later during the January 25-February 9 camp in Antalya where all their junior teams from U12 to U19 will gather.

The matches are unusual given the suspension of Russian clubs from international competitions after the start of the Ukraine war.

But club vice president and youth department head Burak Isikdaglioglu defended the fixtures on Thursday, saying they did not convey a political message.

"It is only about football for us. The children can't help iz," he told dpa. "We are not pro-Russia. There is also no friendship with the clubs. We are playing football."

Isikdaglioglu said that his team includes players of Ukrainian descent "who are also looking forward to the games."

He said Spartak and Krasnodar had been offered as opponents by the organizers of the training camp. He said that the matches have been approved by the German FA and that "otherwise we wouldn't have played."

Isikdaglioglu added that there already been a test match against Krasnodar last year.

He also confirmed that they had originally planned to play against Dynamo Kiev but that the Ukrainian club cancelled it because they don't play against clubs who play against Russian teams.

Russian teams have been suspended from international competition by governing bodies FIFA and UEFA since the start of Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The formal reason was not the war but to guarantee the integrity of competitions.

Matches against Russian teams are not forbidden, and Russia's national team plays matches outside official tournaments and is 38th in the FIFA world rankings.

UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin has criticised the exclusion of Russian youth teams from official competitions, saying the young generation in Russia would be isolated permanently on the international stage.

A UEFA proposal from 2023 to allow Russian U17 teams back to international events was withdrawn after protests and boycott threats from member federations.