(Geneva) The outright exclusion of Russians and Belarusians from world sport as the price of the invasion of Ukraine: the spectacular recommendation of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) on Monday is historic for an organization usually inclined to stay away from politics.
Posted at 10:08 a.m.
Updated at 11:57 a.m.
The announcements are now likely to follow one another: a source familiar with the matter thus explained to AFP that FIFA was conducting “advanced discussions” to exclude Russia from the World Cup-2022, a planetary event which it hosted in 2018 .
Their potential opponents for the play-offs in March, Poland, the Czech Republic and Sweden, have explained that they will not face the Russians under any circumstances.
To justify its recommendation, which comes a few days before the start of the Paralympic Games (March 4-13), the IOC highlights a “dilemma”: “While athletes from Russia and Belarus could continue to participate in events sports, many Ukrainian athletes are prevented from doing so due to the attack on their country. »
To resolve it, it “recommends that the International Sports Federations and the organizers of sports events not to invite or allow the participation of Russian and Belarusian athletes and official representatives in international competitions”.
If the IOC were to be massively followed by international federations, Russia would join Slobodan Milosevic’s Yugoslavia and apartheid South Africa in the history of the great pariahs of international sport.
For Loïc Tregourès, author of the book Football in Yugoslavia chaos, it is clear that this Monday “the IOC is giving it away. Afterwards, FIFA has a basis on which to rest so as not to engage its own responsibility”, especially since according to him the “statutes” of FIFA do not “allow Russia to be suspended”.
Putin stripped of Olympic medal
Another measure, symbolic, but strong, the IOC also withdrew the “Olympic order” from all senior Russian officials, starting with President Vladimir Putin.
Stanislav Pozdnyakov, president of the Russian Olympic Committee, said in a statement that the IOC’s decision “goes against the regulations and the charter, first and foremost the spirit of the Olympic movement which aims to unite and not to divide. , especially when it comes to athletes or the equality of participants in the Olympic movement”.
The IOC however specified that if “for organizational or legal reasons”, it is not possible to prevent the arrival of Russian sportsmen, the IOC asks that they cannot be “authorized to participate under the name from Russia or Belarus.
The issue is particularly pressing for the Paralympic Games, which begin Friday in Beijing.
“When, in very extreme circumstances”, putting in place these measures “is not possible in the short term for organizational or legal reasons”, the “IOC leaves it to the organization concerned to find its own way”. He therefore refers to the International Paralympic Committee, reiterating his “full support”, which has planned to speak on Wednesday.
Support for anti-war athletes
Another spectacular aspect of the IOC’s communication on Monday was its break with its tradition of requiring athletes to be neutral. The IOC thus hailed “the numerous calls for peace made by athletes, sports officials and members of the world Olympic community”. He “especially admires and supports the calls for peace by Russian athletes,” he continued.
Tennis player Andrey Rublev, hockey player Alexander Ovechkin and cyclist Pavel Sivakov have clearly expressed their opposition to the war waged by their country. They are now threatened with having to pay a high professional price if their federations follow the recommendations of the IOC. For the international footballer Fedor Smolov, it is already the case.
Without waiting for the IOC, several countries had already expressed their refusal to accept the presence of Russians on their territory to compete there.
The Champions League final was canceled in St Petersburg by UEFA, which is set to terminate its sponsorship contract with Gazprom, and the Russian Grand Prix in Sochi was canceled seven months before its scheduled date. Two very strong measures affecting symbolic events of sports “soft power”, an assumed policy of influence in Vladimir Putin’s Russia.
Asked by AFP even before the new statement from the IOC, Pim Vershuuren, researcher in the geopolitics of sport at the University of Rennes, already believed that the “decisions taken this week were historic, commensurate with the shock”. And to warn: those to come, and which therefore fell on Monday, “will set precedents and history”.