The official language of Zürich is German, but the main spoken language is Zürich German, the local variant of the Alemannic Swiss German dialect. During the Middle Ages, Zürich gained the independent and privileged status of imperial immediacy and, in 1519, became a primary centre of the Protestant Reformation in Europe under the leadership of Huldrych Zwingli. However, early settlements have been found dating back more than 6,400 years (although this only indicates human presence in the area and not the presence of a town that early). Permanently settled for over 2,000 years, Zürich was founded by the Romans, who called it Turicum. Both Zurich Airport and Zürich's main railway station are the largest and busiest in the country. Zürich is a hub for railways, roads, and air traffic. As of January 2020, the municipality has 434,335 inhabitants, the urban area 1.315 million (2009), and the Zürich metropolitan area 1.83 million (2011). It is located in north-central Switzerland, at the northwestern tip of Lake Zürich.
However, Russia's ultimate World Cup status in 2022 should be a final decision for the panel of three judges who will soon hear the case on its full merits.įIFA is among several governing bodies of Olympic sports now facing appeal hearings at CAS as Russian officials challenge bans on their teams and athletes.Zürich ( see below) is the largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zürich. Schmidhauser concluded Russia is now effectively out of the World Cup because FIFA did not offer to reinstate the team in the event of its federation winning at the full appeal hearing. She also doubted whether “in light of the worldwide outrage and condemnation provoked" by events in Ukraine, the security of players and officials could be ensured if Russia played games even in a neutral country.
“The integrity of FIFA competitions would be severely damaged,” the former Olympic skier judged. Schmidhauser noted that “should (Russia’s) men’s national team be allowed to play, their opponents would forfeit the game and the matches would not even take place.”
The Swiss lawyer had to decide if the potential damage done to Russia’s soccer team outweighed the damage to FIFA as a competition organizer. The ruling was made by a single member of the CAS management board, Corinne Schmidhauser, the president of the appeals division. Lawyers for the Russian soccer federation argued the ban by the FIFA Council was “a disguised disciplinary sanction” where the right to be heard was denied. “Having considered all these factors, FIFA must act to guarantee the efficient organization and smooth running of its competitions.” the governing body said. “Those decisions are both fully understandable and cannot be criticized from either a legal or moral point of view,” FIFA lawyers said in a submission to the court.įIFA said it could foresee that other member federations would also refuse to play Russia if the team advanced to the World Cup, saying the consequences for the tournament "would be irreparable and chaotic.” Though FIFA competition rules typically punish federations whose teams refuse to play scheduled games, soccer’s world body agreed with Poland, Sweden and the Czechs. That three-nation boycott of Russia weighed heavily on the urgent CAS ruling, which sided with FIFA’s stated need to “guarantee the smooth running of its flagship competition.”
Poland, Sweden and the Czech Republic - which lost to Sweden - had all stated they would refuse to play Russia in light of the country’s war on Ukraine. Poland was given a bye and advanced to the tournament in Qatar by beating Sweden in the playoff final. The interim ruling in Russia’s appeal on March 18 - pending a full appeal hearing likely due at CAS in the weeks ahead - ensured the men’s team could not play Poland six days later in the World Cup qualifying playoff. The legal debate between FIFA and Russia’s soccer federation was published Tuesday by the Court of Arbitration for Sport, explaining why its judge denied an urgent Russian request to freeze a ban that excluded its teams from the men’s and women’s World Cups. Letting Russia try to qualify for the World Cup risked doing “irreparable and chaotic” harm to the competition, FIFA successfully argued at sport’s highest court.