Paris, France. AFP.

Canceled competitions or with new venues -starting with Champions League football final-, refusal of Poland and Sweden to face Russia in the playoffs to the Qatar-2022 World Cup, athletes declare persona non grata and sponsorship in the air: Russia’s invasion of Ukraine continues to have grave consequences for professional sports.

Four years after the World Cup, Saint Petersburg is set to host the most important match of European club competition, the Champions League final, on 28 May.

UEFA decided on Friday to move the venue to Paris and could make another important decision in the coming days to terminate its contract with Gazprom, one of its main sponsors, for an estimated 40 million euros ($45 million) per year.

Sochi is a symbol of Russia’s ambition to make a name for itself internationally through sport. It was the venue for the 2014 Winter Olympics and hosted the Russian Formula 1 Grand Prix, but the race scheduled for September 2022 was canceled by the competition’s promoters, seven months after the dispute.

Team Haas America, for its part, decided not to wear the Russian colors of its sponsor Uralkali in its single seat. Nikita Mazepin’s future in F1, the son of an Uralkali manager and who will drive one of Haas’ two cars, is also on the rise.

Chelsea owner, Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich, will hand over the “management and administration” of the Premier League club to the administrator of the entity’s charitable foundation, the current European champions announced in a statement.

Abramovich made this decision just two days after the start of the offensive by the Russian army in Ukraine, a conflict that is criticized by almost the entire international community and which has led to the siege of oligarchs close to the Kremlin and Russian interests.

As British authorities announced sanctions against Russian interests, Liberal Democrat MP Layla Moran on Wednesday named Abramovich as one of President Vladimir Putin’s 35 “key men” who should be sanctioned.

However, the General Treasury announced a list of Russian oligarchs whose assets and bank accounts in Britain had been blocked and Abramovich did not appear on that list.

FIFA has yet to make a decision on the planned matches in Russia. But the Polish Football Federation continued, much to the satisfaction of its star Robert Lewandowski, and announced that he would not play on March 24 against Russia in the semifinals of the 2022 World Cup playoffs to be played in Moscow.

Sweden, who may have to face Russia on March 29 in the play-off final, also announced this Saturday that they will not play against that team.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC), usually reluctant to comment on geopolitical issues, has asked international sports federations to cancel or move all planned events to Russia or Belarus.

He also requested that the flags of the two countries not be flown and their national anthems not played, predicting the Olympic truce, which will last until a week after the Winter Paralympics (4-13 March), was breached.

In keeping with the call, the International Ski Federation (FIS) announced the cancellation of all its competitions in Russia between now and the end of the season for the “safety of all participants”.

The Volleyball World Cup (26 Aug-11 Sept) hasn’t been drawn to Russia for now, but it looks very risky. “Without me thank you,” wrote French volleyball star Earvin Ngapeth on Twitter. Russia, one of the sports’ powers, lost in the organization of the Women’s Nations League group stage matches in Ufa (28 June-3 July) and men’s in Kemerovo (5-10 July).

The Swedish government on Saturday called for Russia’s comprehensive exclusion from all sporting competitions by countries in the European Union. The Norwegian and Swedish federations reported that Russian athletes were not welcome in their territories for next month’s event.

UK Home Secretary Ptriti Patel has warned that “national teams of the countries involved” in the invasion of Ukraine will not be welcome in Britain. The visas of the Belarusian basketball players, who were due to play on Sunday at Newcastle, have been cancelled.