Poland will not include defender Maciej Rybus in its World Cup plans after he signed a new contract with a Russian club.
According to the Polish soccer association, coach Czesaw Michniewicz informed Rybus on Monday that he will be kept out of the squad for Nations League games in September and out of Poland’s World Cup ambitions due to his “current club predicament.”
The full defender spent last season at Lokomotiv Moscow and remained with the club following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. On June 11, he signed a new two years contract with Spartak Moscow.
Rybus has 66 caps for Poland, the most recent in November, and was a member of the squad for the 2018 World Cup and the European Championship last year.
Except for a brief stint in France with Lyon, he has spent practically the whole last decade with various Russian clubs and is married to a Russian woman.
Two more national players have contracts with Russian clubs, but the federation has not released any information on them. Existing contracts for FC Krasnodar midfielders Grzegorz Krychowiak and Sebastian Szymanski were signed before the invasion, and Krychowiak was loaned to Greek club AEK Athens after the invasion.
In the World Cup group stage, Poland will face Mexico, Argentina, and Saudi Arabia.
Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February, Poland announced that it would not participate in a scheduled World Cup qualification match against Russia in Moscow. Poland was given a bye into the following round by FIFA, and it qualified by defeating Sweden 2-0.
