Russia-Ukraine Crisis Consequences in Sports

[opruh 129]

Ukraine invasion = FIFA bans all russians

Protest about the bombings in Gaza = FIFA says football is not for politics

[NMQ 222]

4 hours ago, orangeman said:

I normally agree that sport should be left out of politics.  However, in ancient Greece warring factions would agree to a ceasefire in order to participate in the Olympics.  In this case, Ukrainian athletes are unable to participate in several cases due to Russia's illegal invasion.  It would be incredibly poor optics to allow Russian athletes to travel the world freely and compete for their country while their government prevents competitors from Ukraine to do the same.  

 

Further, in an effort to avoid all out physical war, countries are attempting to end this as peacefully as possible.  Excluding and embarrassing Russia, including through sport, is part of that effort.  Banning Russian sports teams and athletes actually is an attempt at peace.  

I agree with the general idea of this argument, the problem I have with it is that unless you specifically use it in the context of a classical invasion of a sovereign country like this one, it pretty much can be used too for any conflict where a foreign country is involved and local people suffer. There are many of those and it won't happen.

 

In the end, I think technical arguments don't matter here and the decision will be about what most countries and the public opinion say it's better. 

[NearPup 2,359]

I do think that part of the problem is that Russia and Belarus were both already on very thin ice with the IOC (for state sponsored doping and the government messing with athletes respectively). For Russia in particular the IOC is out of ways to register their displeasure short of a ban.

[dcro 10,193]

5 hours ago, Makedonas said:

You must have not been paying attention last year when Aliyev did that to Armenians...

Not to get overly technical, but Nagorno-Karabakh was internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, even if under Armenian control.

 

So that makes it positively different in comparison to the current invasion...

[Agger 1,601]

9 hours ago, De_Gambassi said:

That's fucking insane. You want to ban people from sport (and from their living) based on their political view. 

No. I want it to be a way out of the ban that has been imposed by more and more federations and recommended by the IOC.

Most sanctions sadly hurts the people just as much or even more than the leaders starting the wars. I'm pretty sure that a ban in sports will be tough on the Russian leaders as well considering how Putin and co. have used sports for politics, but it will certainly be tough on athletes and fans in Russia. Giving them a way out doesn't seem like such a bad idea to me (then we should certainly also be ready to support them if it give them trouble in their own country).
It's a gray area, no doubt, but I'm sure there could be a way of letting some athletes get a chance.

 

This should (and will) start a discussion on when to actually ban nations. Could have been the US and supporting nations (including my own) when invading Iraq, questioning on Israel, India-Pakistan and others. I don't know

[JonPhi 247]

No  athletes at FIS junior championships in Zakopane (POL). Otherwise, the organizers would not have held the championship

[De_Gambassi 947]

9 hours ago, thiago_simoes said:

I suppose there must be someone out there who thinks France should also be banned for keeping troops in Mali for years.

You see, almost no nation is safe, so drawing criticism against other nations here to take the focus off of the Russia-Ukraine conflict will take us nowhere.
 

 

Precisely. Where does is starts ? Who decides and on what grounds ? The reasoning behind the banning of Russia could have been applied to ban other nations before (including Russia also), but was not.

 

This is very much a slippery stone issue. Sport is now an official part of the war package and we will see nations constantly asking for other nations to be banned from sports organisations.

[NearPup 2,359]

16 minutes ago, De_Gambassi said:

 

Precisely. Where does is starts ? Who decides and on what grounds ? The reasoning behind the banning of Russia could have been applied to ban other nations before (including Russia also), but was not.

 

This is very much a slippery stone issue. Sport is now an official part of the war package and we will see nations constantly asking for other nations to be banned from sports organisations.

I think “war of conquest” is a pretty decent line. In Crimea there was conquest but certainly no war (it was more a bloodless coup than anything else). If Putin had just done a “peacekeeping” escapade in the Donbas I think most of the world would have waved their fingers but not have reacted too strongly.

 

But invading a country that quite clearly does not want to be invaded for the clear goal of annexing it (Putin sort of discredited any plausible deniability with his speech)? Wherever the line is, surely that is beyond it?

[heywoodu 13,751]

34 minutes ago, JonPhi said:

No  athletes at FIS junior championships in Zakopane (POL). Otherwise, the organizers would not have held the championship

IBU so far handled it way better, letting them compete under NAR instead of RUS, way better than blocking them entirely...

[NearPup 2,359]

ISU is banning all  and  athletes and officials from participating in any event until further notice.

 

https://isu.org/isu-news/news/145-news/14024-isu-statement-on-the-ukrainian-crisis-participation-in-international-competitions-of-skaters-and-officials-from-russia-and-belarus?templateParam=15