Michał Kubiak will cause a storm with his words about Russians. The Pole didn’t bite his tongue

The former captain of the Polish national team has a lot of sports successes, which are actually difficult to collect – here and now – so as not to miss any that were important in a given period.

There is no doubt that the top priority – from the perspective of fans of the Polish national volleyball team – is winning the world championship twice, in 2014 and 2018.

Michał Kubiak wants Russians to return to sport. Shocking words from a volleyball player

Interestingly, although Kubiak was an active Polish representative until the end of 2021, the receiver has not been seen on Polish league pitches for a long time. The last club where “Kubi” played was Jastrzębski Węgiel. Kubiak played for the Silesian team in 2011-14.

Then the volleyball player decided to play abroad, starting with the Turkish league, and ending up in Asia for many years. Kubiak represented the Japanese Panasonic Panthers for the longest time, in 2016-23.

In an interview with Łukasz Kadziewicz in the podcast “In the shadow of sport”, on the “Przegląd Sportowy” and Onet YouTube channels, the experienced volleyball player spoke on many issues. One of them was the opinion regarding the upcoming – at least according to unofficial information coming from the volleyball world – return to senior play of Russia and Belarus.

Interestingly, Kubiak would like these nations to return to international competition.

– This is a difficult topic. This is a topic that will surely electrify everyone. It’s easy to sit at home and say: No, let’s throw them out! Let’s just turn the situation around. If only it were us. For example, I would not want five years of practicing sport at the highest level to be taken away from me because of someone’s political decision. Why should I, as an athlete, be responsible for the decisions of politicians? Why is someone telling me not to do my job? What are the owes of the athletes who represent a given country? What is the responsibility of an athlete who wants to compete with the best at the Olympics, at the world championships… See how many of these people have lost the opportunity to fulfill their dreams, themselves as an athlete, as a person (…) I would like them to come back as athletes. Not as a nation, a country under Putin’s flag. I won’t go into that. I would like them, as athletes and one of the countries with the best volleyball team, to return to international competitions. Because without them I miss something – admitted the former captain of the Polish national team.

As you know, Russia and Belarus do not participate in international volleyball competitions due to the ongoing war in Ukraine.