Analysis. By excluding Russia and Belarus from international competitions almost unanimously, the sports movement gave the image of a “family” united as rarely. The International Olympic Committee (IOC), patron of world sport, reacted on February 28, four days after the Russian military invasion of Ukraine.
In its press release, the IOC recommended “to international sports federations and organizers of sports events not to invite or allow the participation of Russian and Belarusian athletes and officials in international competitions”.
Message received and followed up on the same day by the International Football Federation (FIFA) and the European Football Union (UEFA): in a joint decision, the two powerful organizations deprived the Russian team of the World Cup Qatar (November 21 to December 18) and Russian clubs in all European competition, including the lucrative Champions League – the final has been relocated from Saint Petersburg to the Stade de France, in Paris.
By a domino effect, the overwhelming majority of sports federations, except the ITF in particular, which governs tennis – the organizers of the Wimbledon tournament (United Kingdom) nevertheless decided, on April 20, to exclude Russian players and Belarusians from the next tournament in July – followed the IOC’s call, reducing Russian sport to pariah status. A fate hitherto reserved for the former Yugoslavia of the early 1990s and apartheid South Africa.
Lack of firmness
Quick, historic, the position of the Olympic body, based in Lausanne (Switzerland), surprised. “Within a few days, the sports family was almost in full force to explain the need for tough sanctions against Russia”is still surprised Carole Gomez, director of research at the Institute of International and Strategic Relations.
A surprising position indeed when, in recent years, the IOC had been rather noted for its reluctance, in the name of its traditional “political neutrality”, to engage in the field of respect for human rights.
But, on closer inspection, the IOC did not turn into an ardent defender of human rights from the first cannon shots fired on kyiv. In its text of February 28, the organization, which has more National Olympic Committees (206) than there are member states in the United Nations, only “recommends” the banishment of Russian and Belarusian athletes; it does not take this decision itself, but leaves it to the international federations to do so.
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