FIFA has officially apologized to Ukraine for the incident during the official emblem launch for the 2018 World Cup, during which Crimea was shown as part of Russia.
“As part of the official emblem launch, the Local Organizing Committee commissioned a local creative agency with an art projection on the Bolshoi Theater as a unique photo and filming opportunity. Unfortunately, a map of Russia, showing the Ukrainian region of Crimea as part of Russia, was selected and used during the projection by the local service provider which escaped FIFA’s attention when uploading the video footage on our website and YouTube channel. Once this unfortunate incident was brought to our attention we immediately removed the short sequence in question,” reads a letter from FIFA Secretary General Jerome Valcke to the Football Federation of Ukraine (FFU), which was published on the federation’s website on Tuesday.
FIFA said it regretted any inconvenience caused by this unfortunate incident and assured the FFU to be more attentive to the materiel produced by the third parties in the future.
As reported, Ukraine’s Embassy in Switzerland sent a note of protest to FIFA against the video with the launch of the official emblem of the 2018 World Cup, in which the map of Russia included the Ukrainian region of Crimea.
