Russia 2018: Russian Federation proposes regrouping its international players into league in 2017-18

The RFS (the Russian Football Federation) is working on regrouping the Russian national team players into the Russian Premier League by buying their 2017-18 contract year, the season prior to the 2018 World Cup in Russia, and organising them to play together in the Russian league, according to Anatoliy Vorobyev, the general secretary of the RFS, on 11/09/2014.

“The team would take part in the Russian domestic championship in the season before the World Cup, that is 2017-18. The team would be formed from 'leased' players who play regularly for Russia and represent the leading clubs. There would be two transfer windows. The club could take back a player sent to ‘Russia 2018’ for the winter off-season. It would also be possible to arrange for the club to get its player back for the spring campaign of the Champions League,” added Anatoliy Vorobyev.

“It is clear that we can only compete on the highest world level through teamwork,” he said. “In this situation, it is necessary to look for possible competitive advantage. One of them, perhaps, the most important thing would be to create a…