Friday, March 29, 2024

How sports leagues are responding to the Russia-Ukraine war


The IOC’s govt board stated in an announcement that it was shifting “to protect the integrity of global sports competitions and for the safety of all the participants.”

If that isn’t doable due to quick discover, the IOC urged organizations to “do everything in their power to ensure that no athlete or sports official from Russia or Belarus be allowed to take part under the name of Russia or Belarus. Russian or Belarusian nationals, be it as individuals or teams, should be accepted only as neutral athletes or neutral teams. No national symbols, colors, flags or anthems should be displayed.”

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The IOC stopped in need of an outright ban, nonetheless, and has not suspended both nation. That aligns with motion taken by FIFA, soccer’s worldwide governing physique. It has not banned Russia from World Cup competitors, however its crew will probably be required to compete as Football Union of Russia. It had been scheduled to host Poland on March 24 in a World Cup qualifying playoff, however Poland and Russia’s subsequent doable opponents, Sweden and the Czech Republic, have stated they might refuse to take the subject.

The International Ice Hockey Federation has additionally been the goal of calls to transfer occasions from Russia and bar its athletes from competitors. Federations in Switzerland, Latvia and Finland urged the IIHF to take these measures regarding and Belarus, with Wayne Gretzky lending his voice to the rising din.

Calling the invasion “a senseless war,” Gretzky went on to say on the “NHL on TNT,” “I was so glad to see the Polish soccer team step up and say we’re not going to play against them [in World Cup qualifying next month]. And I think international hockey should say, ‘We’re not going to let them play in the world junior hockey championship.’ I think we’ve got to, as Canadians, take that stance since the games are going to be played in Edmonton.”

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Besides the World Junior Championships, upcoming IIHF tournaments embody the males’s and ladies’s World Championships and the males’s and ladies’s U18′s. The 2023 world juniors, set for Novosibirsk and Omsk in Russia, and the 2023 Men’s World Championship in St. Petersburg would even be into account.

Calls for punishment and protests have unfold throughout sports. The Swiss soccer federation stated its girls’s crew wouldn’t play Russia in the European Championship and Schalke, a German soccer membership, ended its long-standing partnership with Gazprom, Russia’s state-owned vitality large.

On Sunday, Dinamo Riga, a hockey crew primarily based in Latvia, withdrew from Russia’s Kontinental Hockey League due to the invasion. Part of the KHL since the league’s inaugural 2008-09 season, it was one in every of 5 groups in the 24-team league primarily based outdoors Russia getting into the season.

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Dinamo Riga’s withdrawal leaves three groups primarily based outdoors of Russia that had been nonetheless collaborating in the league as of Sunday — Barys Nur-Sultan of Kazakhstan, Dinamo Minsk of Belarus and Kunlun Red Star of China. Barys Nur-Sultan and Dinamo Minsk are scheduled to participate in the playoffs; Kunlun Red Star didn’t qualify.

Last week, Finland’s Jokerit introduced it might not be participate in the KHL playoffs and its future in the KHL past the postseason is unsure.





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