HEAVEN HELP THE land who turns to a sports administrators and hopes to find a hero.
Even for those of who us who expect very little of our international sports governing bodies have found reason to be disappointed in them across the last couple of week.
Irish football is now reckoning with the direct impact of this, as the game here has to come to a position on the Israel question in the face of vague but potentially punitive sanction from Uefa.
That the FAI is in this position is because football’s governing bodies have not come to a firm answer on Israel’s participation in official competitions. Uefa’s response to the FAI’s EGM motion calling for the expulsion amounted to little beyond, ‘Thanks, lads, we promise you we are keeping a close eye on the situation.’
The FAI’s argument to Uefa deliberately echoed the same alleged Israeli rule breaches as the Palestine FA put to Fifa in May 2024, on which Fifa have still not made a decision. They have kicked it to a couple of committees whose work, Gianni Infantino tells us, is still continuing.
Infantino is meanwhile busy trying to figure out what, exactly, football can do. He said last year that football cannot be expected to solve “geopolitical issues”, but in 2022 reacted to an agreement that allowed Israelis and Palestinians fly together to the Qatar World Cup as a decision which “provides a platform to improve relations across the Middle East”.
Infantino has meanwhile been busy lately laying the groundwork for Russia’s return to international football, telling Sky News that “this ban has not achieved anything” and “has just created more frustration and hatred.”
Gianni, wait until you see how much frustration and hatred has been created by Russia’s mass slaughter of innocent Ukrainian civilians!
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Infantino continued, saying “having girls and boys from Russia being able to play football games in other parts of Europe would help.” Wait, I thought football couldn’t solve geopolitical issues, and now you’re saying it can help?
But Infantino is not alone in his stance here, because international sport is all of a sudden throwing open the doors once again to Russia and Belarus, for no obvious reason whatsoever. A rubicon was crossed this week with confirmation that Russian and Belarusian athletes will be allowed to compete under their own national flags at the forthcoming Winter Paralympics.
Meanwhile at the ongoing Winter Olympics, it took a skeleton event to show the lack of spine at the International Olympic Committee. The Ukranian athlete Vladyslav Heraskevych was told he would not be allowed to compete at the Games if he insisted on wearing a helmet depicting Ukrainian athletes killed in the war with Russia, and when he refused to resile from his stance, Heraskevych was informed minutes before he was due to compete that his accreditation had been revoked. He was therefore banned from competing before he actually violated any of the IOC’s rules.
The IOC president Kirsty Coventry wept theatrically before the media, saying she had done her best to persuade Heraskevych to wear a different helmet, and that she had truly wanted to see him race. Here was yet another head of a powerful sports organisation suddenly giving the impression of being powerless: was Coventry aware that the IOC could simply have allowed Heraskevych to race in memory of his comrades?
Heraskevych appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, who seasoned some useless, Coventry-esque sympathy on their decision backing the IOC’s call and denying Heraskevych a place in competition.
When the history of this era of global sports is written, the CAS decision will be remembered as the moment the quiet part was said out loud. The headline of the CAS decision was a staggering sentence to read in black-and-white.
THE CAS AD HOC DIVISION DENIES APPLICATION BY VLADYSLAV
HERASKEVYCH (UKRAINE) AND FINDS FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION
GUARANTEED AT THE OLYMPIC GAMES, BUT NOT ON THE FIELD OF PLAY
Digest that line one more time: Freedom of expression guaranteed at the Olympic Games, but not on the field of play.
If freedom of expression has codified limits, then the expression doesn’t appear to be very free to us.
CAS found in favour of the IOC’s rules, explaining that while Heraskevych has the right to wear the helmet outside of competition and speak up in press conferences on what he liked, wearing such an eye-catching piece of equipment would have risked impinging on the athlete’s right to “undivided attention for their sporting performances and sporting success.”
Now that CAS have endorsed this view that athletes have to be guaranteed “undivided attention for their performance”, we wonder what else will now have to be repealed from view so as not to distract the viewer.
Can an athlete have any tattoos showing, for instance, given our eyes might briefly wander to them? And what about sponsors logos? Surely showing those on screen risks causing a distraction. Plus, close-up TV shots of the crowd and athletes’ support staff will have to end, given they are an explicit distraction from sporting performance.
Read this decision for what it is: a rule requiring Olympic athletes to shut up and dribble.
International sports governing bodies’ claims to be apolitical are themselves a political statement, because choosing not to take a position at all is choosing to take a certain position all the same.
This is the context in which the FAI will be forced to make their call on Israel.
Will they fall into the line so expediently trod by Uefa, Fifa, and the IOC, or will they choose to go their own way, and in so doing make it clear that they are not taking a stand, but taking a different stand to that which the aforementioned governing bodies have taken?
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Fifa and the IOC's spineless politicking reminds us that they will never be the heroes we need
HEAVEN HELP THE land who turns to a sports administrators and hopes to find a hero.
Even for those of who us who expect very little of our international sports governing bodies have found reason to be disappointed in them across the last couple of week.
Irish football is now reckoning with the direct impact of this, as the game here has to come to a position on the Israel question in the face of vague but potentially punitive sanction from Uefa.
That the FAI is in this position is because football’s governing bodies have not come to a firm answer on Israel’s participation in official competitions. Uefa’s response to the FAI’s EGM motion calling for the expulsion amounted to little beyond, ‘Thanks, lads, we promise you we are keeping a close eye on the situation.’
The FAI’s argument to Uefa deliberately echoed the same alleged Israeli rule breaches as the Palestine FA put to Fifa in May 2024, on which Fifa have still not made a decision. They have kicked it to a couple of committees whose work, Gianni Infantino tells us, is still continuing.
Infantino is meanwhile busy trying to figure out what, exactly, football can do. He said last year that football cannot be expected to solve “geopolitical issues”, but in 2022 reacted to an agreement that allowed Israelis and Palestinians fly together to the Qatar World Cup as a decision which “provides a platform to improve relations across the Middle East”.
Infantino has meanwhile been busy lately laying the groundwork for Russia’s return to international football, telling Sky News that “this ban has not achieved anything” and “has just created more frustration and hatred.”
Gianni, wait until you see how much frustration and hatred has been created by Russia’s mass slaughter of innocent Ukrainian civilians!
Infantino continued, saying “having girls and boys from Russia being able to play football games in other parts of Europe would help.” Wait, I thought football couldn’t solve geopolitical issues, and now you’re saying it can help?
But Infantino is not alone in his stance here, because international sport is all of a sudden throwing open the doors once again to Russia and Belarus, for no obvious reason whatsoever. A rubicon was crossed this week with confirmation that Russian and Belarusian athletes will be allowed to compete under their own national flags at the forthcoming Winter Paralympics.
Meanwhile at the ongoing Winter Olympics, it took a skeleton event to show the lack of spine at the International Olympic Committee. The Ukranian athlete Vladyslav Heraskevych was told he would not be allowed to compete at the Games if he insisted on wearing a helmet depicting Ukrainian athletes killed in the war with Russia, and when he refused to resile from his stance, Heraskevych was informed minutes before he was due to compete that his accreditation had been revoked. He was therefore banned from competing before he actually violated any of the IOC’s rules.
The IOC president Kirsty Coventry wept theatrically before the media, saying she had done her best to persuade Heraskevych to wear a different helmet, and that she had truly wanted to see him race. Here was yet another head of a powerful sports organisation suddenly giving the impression of being powerless: was Coventry aware that the IOC could simply have allowed Heraskevych to race in memory of his comrades?
Heraskevych appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, who seasoned some useless, Coventry-esque sympathy on their decision backing the IOC’s call and denying Heraskevych a place in competition.
When the history of this era of global sports is written, the CAS decision will be remembered as the moment the quiet part was said out loud. The headline of the CAS decision was a staggering sentence to read in black-and-white.
THE CAS AD HOC DIVISION DENIES APPLICATION BY VLADYSLAV
HERASKEVYCH (UKRAINE) AND FINDS FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION
GUARANTEED AT THE OLYMPIC GAMES, BUT NOT ON THE FIELD OF PLAY
Digest that line one more time: Freedom of expression guaranteed at the Olympic Games, but not on the field of play.
If freedom of expression has codified limits, then the expression doesn’t appear to be very free to us.
CAS found in favour of the IOC’s rules, explaining that while Heraskevych has the right to wear the helmet outside of competition and speak up in press conferences on what he liked, wearing such an eye-catching piece of equipment would have risked impinging on the athlete’s right to “undivided attention for their sporting performances and sporting success.”
Now that CAS have endorsed this view that athletes have to be guaranteed “undivided attention for their performance”, we wonder what else will now have to be repealed from view so as not to distract the viewer.
Can an athlete have any tattoos showing, for instance, given our eyes might briefly wander to them? And what about sponsors logos? Surely showing those on screen risks causing a distraction. Plus, close-up TV shots of the crowd and athletes’ support staff will have to end, given they are an explicit distraction from sporting performance.
Read this decision for what it is: a rule requiring Olympic athletes to shut up and dribble.
International sports governing bodies’ claims to be apolitical are themselves a political statement, because choosing not to take a position at all is choosing to take a certain position all the same.
This is the context in which the FAI will be forced to make their call on Israel.
Will they fall into the line so expediently trod by Uefa, Fifa, and the IOC, or will they choose to go their own way, and in so doing make it clear that they are not taking a stand, but taking a different stand to that which the aforementioned governing bodies have taken?
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