FIFA: CIS championships not possible

Sepp Blatter tells the Russia's Football Union to continue holding the country's championships and forget about reviving the Soviet-type league.

"The creation of the CIS league goes against FIFA principles," Sepp Blatter told a news conference on January 20 in St Petersburg.

The 76-year-old Swiss added that FIFA has a clear structure of tournaments where club competitions were held within national federations or continental associations like UEFA's Champions League or the Libertadores Cup.

"The new league can break the existing FIFA structure and bring dismay into it," Blatter said. "FIFA will never give its approval to such a project. Russian football officials should forget about this idea."

The ambitious plan was mooted last month by Alexei Miller, the chief of Gazprom, owner and main sponsor of Russia's champions Zenit St Petersburg, and has picked up support from many top clubs in the former Soviet republics.