Russia, war, and the business of sports

January 2024

Abstract:
While Mr. Putin's Russia is wantonly killing and destroying Ukraine in a war that has been condemned by every responsible nation, the UN and the World Court, international sports organizations act as if nothing is amiss. We need to ask: Can we enjoy sports together with nations that are actively practicing genocide? Would you invite murderers to a party? Of course not. Russian competitors should be banned from participation in international events.

Putin has now pummelled Ukraine with missiles, bombs, and artillery for over two years, and will apparently not call off his atrocities until he is forced to do so by external or internal forces. To speed the only acceptable conclusion of the war – which is getting Russian forces out of all of Ukraine, it is clearly necessary for Europe, the US, and other democratic countries to assist Ukraine in every way possible. So far we haven't done that: we haven't gone full bore into manufacturing and delivering what the Ukrainians need to win back their country. If we don't, this war may drag on until Russia will prove the obvious – that they have more resources and manpower than Ukraine. That would be a tragedy; only our total commitment to Ukraine can avert such an end to the war.

But until the day comes that the war is history and Russia has paid the reparations due Ukraine for the destruction of its property and the deaths and injuries to its people, Russia must be made to pay the financial penalties available to the world. One of these is trade sanctions, and a key sanction not yet uniformly enforced is against Russian participation in international professional sports. Russian competitors earn prize money outside their country and bring these into Russia, where they pay taxes on these to the Russian state, which helps to fund Russia's outrage against Ukraine. The World Court has found Russia guilty of genocide for their destruction of Ukraine. The international community thus has an obligation to prevent all such transfers of funds to Russia, meaning that Russian athletes should not be permitted to compete in international events. This should naturally include the greatest of such events, the Olympic Games.

International regulation of sports is largely the province of a patchwork of organizations, each regulating a specific sport or a related group of sports. Thus, standards of elegibility, discipline, commercial relations, compensation, safety, etc. vary widely among sports. Similarly, each organization makes its own decisions regarding potential exclusions of athletes. All agree with the principle that athletes from all corners of the world should ideally be free to compete against one another with no restrictions related to politics or international animus. However, ideals are rarely attained in real life. For one, international sports competitions have become more and more tied to nations' commercial and political interests. (Historical note: In the 1950s – and yes, I remember it well – there was practically no commercial involvement in international sports, which in keeping with the Olympic ideal were mostly amateur competitions. The first commercial involvement crept in via alpine skiing, though of course national pride was always on the line. In the '60s the communist nations became more involved; with their heavy state support for their athletes they had surprising success and were accused of professionalism, which led to other nations copying their practice of paying their international athletes. Commercial sponsorship followed and now dominates sports, both nationally and internationally, with the sole exception of the Olympics, which has tried (with a wink) to retain the look of amateurism.)

While the ideal of (wo)man-to-(wo)man individual competition in sports is still given lip service, the fact is that the athletes have now become representatives of their country due to state involvement in their careers. For that reason, the behavior of the sponsoring state matters. Athletes should not be closed off from competition because of actions by their state except in extreme cases. Are we now experiencing such an extreme case? Yes, undoubtedly; Russia's continuing egregious genocide against Ukraine requires a stern response from the more civilized world: its representatives in athletic competitions must be disqualified from participation in all international sports. And the pathetic gesture of allowing them to compete, but "without a flag", is meaningless and simply emphasizes the bootlessness of the international response to the Russian outrages.

France should take the lead by denying visas to Russian athletes for the Summer Olympics this year. (Actually, the Olympics should be cancelled, but that will unfortunately not happen.) And to be consistent, the same criterion of genocide must apply to all countries. Although we can point to differences in the level of destruction between the Russian attacks on Ukraine and the Israeli destruction of Gaza, and although Israel pleads that its attack on Gaza was provoked on October 7, its indiscriminate response to that provocation has been far in excess of what might be excused by that attack. The charge of genocide against Israel is now before the World Court; if the court finds Israel guilty, as it did Russia, Israel must similarly be locked out of international sporting events. (Don't mistake this as a recommendation that "genocide" be made the standard for a response of this sort. Genocide is the end point of crime: the worst of which humanity is capable. My point is: sports is our common celebration of joie de vivre. If genocide is not sufficient for a would-be guest to be disinvited from that party, what is?)

The world's response to Russia's blatant invasion of its neighbor Ukraine, although largely positive, has been disappointing in not rising to the level of assistance that is actually needed to teach Russia that it cannot with impunity continue to aggress against it neighbors, no matter how much Mr. Putin believes that it has a historic right to do so. His fantasy-based "right" to expand his already-overgrown country must be opposed with the full forces available. So far we have fallen short of that exigency; we've lacked the full commitment that is needed to get the job done.