A look back at the repercussions of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which marked the world in 2022.
After the bombs, the boycotts. As soon as the war in Ukraine started, the world of sport closed ranks to display its unity with the invaded country.
The International Judo Federation led the fight. Three days after the start of the invasion, it stripped one of its most famous judokas, Russian President Vladimir Putin, of his title of honorary president. Down, invader!
The next day, FIFA and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) followed suit. Both organizations have condemned Russia in no uncertain terms, the first disqualifying the country from the Qatari World Cup outright, the second prescribing the banning of Russian and Belarusian athletes from all tournaments and all sports federations.
The worlds of tennis and hockey both condemned the invasion, without punishing the players. Both the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) and the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) have tolerated Russian athletes, while prohibiting them from displaying under the Russian flag.
The National Hockey League (NHL) has expressed its support for Ukraine – without sanctioning the 40 Russian players who play in the Bettman circuit. Alex Ovechkin, for example, still wears a “C” on his Capitals uniform, despite his sympathy for Vladimir Putin on Instagram. For the NHL, “our players do not play for Russia, but for their teams”.
Despite the war, “the sporting planet continued to turn, recalls Professor Yann Roche – even if it largely did so without Russia”. The Champions League final, the high mass of European football, was to be held in Saint Petersburg in May; it was rather Paris that welcomed her. A Grand Prix was to be held in Sochi in the fall; F1 has drawn a line under the event.
“We tend to punish the country on the sporting level because we know that the Russians attach enormous importance to this showcase,” analyzes Jean Lévesque, professor at UQAM, specialist in sport and the Soviet world.
These sanctions against Russian sport may, however, feed the feeling of persecution maintained by the Kremlin, according to which not everyone plays by the same rules in the world arena. FIFA condemns Russia, but welcomes Saudi Arabia to the World Cup despite Riyadh’s war against Yemen. The IOC no longer wants to know anything about Moscow, but defends Beijing in the same breath, yet guilty of cultural and ethnic cleansing in Tibet and Xinjiang.
Sign, perhaps, that the banishment of Russian sport annoys the strong man of Moscow: it is with an American athlete that the Kremlin played the game of hostages. Basketball player Britney Griner paid the price, sentenced to nine years in prison for transporting less than a gram of hash on Russian soil.
His release in exchange for Viktor Bout, an arms trafficker sometimes called “the sower of death”, reminded us that Russia, even weakened and isolated on the world stage, remains capable of scoring points.