IOC’s Double Standards Trample Principle of ‘Sport Above Politics’ – Russian Ministry
Sputnik – 15.11.2025
MOSCOW – The International Olympic Committee’s double standards have trampled on the principle of “sport above politics,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova told Sputnik on Saturday, commenting on the IOC’s refusal to accredit the RIA Novosti news agency for the upcoming Olympics in Italy.
“By pursuing a harmful policy of double standards and discriminating against athletes on the basis of nationality, IOC officials have effectively trampled the principle of ‘sport above politics’ that was enshrined in the Olympic Charter by Pierre de Coubertin,” Zakharova said.
The spokesperson accused IOC functionaries of “insulting athletes and their fans worldwide, depriving them on chauvinistic grounds of the last opportunity to follow competitions that should be open to all.”
Olympic authorities have a history of imposing restrictions on Russian journalists during major sporting events, Zakharova said. The Paris Olympic Committee denied accreditation in 2024 to several Russian journalists, including those from RIA Novosti and the Izvestia media group, citing French government’s decisions as the reason for the ban.
“Every time the governing bodies of the Olympic movement hid behind the host country, presenting themselves as obedient executors… But, whereas previously the IOC cited the host nation’s stance with affected modesty and embarrassment, now it is inventing nonexistent reasons to deny our correspondents access to competitions. Its claim that a number of other Russian journalists have already been accredited for the 2026 Olympics looks laughable in form and disgraceful in substance, even to an outside observer,” she added.
This is “a ridiculous pretext and yet another manifestation of the Russophobic position that this organization consciously promotes, with dire consequences for the Olympic movement and its ideals, including the rejection of political games in sport,” the spokeswoman said.
Russia expects international organizations, such as the United Nations, the UN sports agency UNESCO and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), to speak out on the IOC’s politicized approach, which violates the principle of equal access to information and media pluralism in favor of “certain pseudo-democracies, including Italy, the Olympic host,” Zakharova said.
“If they ignore this shameful incident, we will regard their inaction as yet another example of bias and dysfunction,” Zakharova added.
Russian athletes exonerated but ignored in the West
By Rick Sterling | RT | May, 2018
A major revelation in the CAS decision is that Richard McLaren, whose reports have formed the basis for banning Russians from the last two Olympics, has qualitatively changed his claim against Russian athletes.
Last year, the Disciplinary Commission of the International Olympic Committee (IOC DC) issued rulings that 44 Russian athletes were guilty of Anti-Doping Rule Violations (ADRVs) at the Sochi 2014 Olympics.
Many of these athletes had been preparing intensely for the upcoming PyeongChang Winter Olympics. Some 39 Russian athletes quickly filed appeals to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), claiming their innocence. The hearings proceeded rapidly.
On February 1, 2018, the CAS announced its decisions: they partially upheld 11 appeals and entirely upheld the appeals of the other 28 Russian athletes. The decision rocked the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). IOC President Thomas Bach said the decision was “extremely disappointing and surprising.”
A week ago, on April 23, the CAS published the full decisions for the first two of 39 Russian athletes. The documents explain the facts, evidence and reasoning behind the CAS decisions to partially or totally uphold the cases of the Russian athletes. The appeal by Aleksandr Zubkov was partly upheld. Alexander Legkov’s appeal was entirely upheld, his Sochi Olympics medals returned and his records reinstated.
McLaren changes his big accusation
The CAS decision revealed that McLaren made qualitative changes to claims made in his reports, which had formed the basis for the Russian bans. In his second report, McLaren concluded: “Over 1,000 Russian athletes competing in summer, winter and Paralympic sport, can be identified as being involved in or benefiting from manipulations to conceal positive doping tests.”
This claim featured in news headlines around the world. In the UK, The Guardian story headlined: “McLaren report: more than 1,000 Russian athletes involved in doping conspiracy.” The BBC said“Russian doping: McLaren report says more than 1,000 implicated.” The New York Times story ran: “Report Shows Vast Reach of Russian Doping: 1,000 Athletes, 30 Sports.”
The CAS decision on Alexander Legkov reveals that McLaren has changed his “key finding.” As described on page 68, “Prof. McLaren went on to explain that, in this respect, if his investigation obtained evidence that a particular athlete may have benefited from the scheme, then ‘It didn’t mean that they did benefit. It didn’t mean that they committed [an] anti-doping rule violation.'”
Sixteen months ago, international media had headlines stated that over 1,000 Russian athletes benefited from a vast state-run doping conspiracy. Now, McLaren says he did not really mean to say that… he meant that they “may have” benefited. There is a major difference between saying that someone “might have” committed a crime versus saying they did commit a crime. The former is speculative. The latter requires evidence.
The CAS looked at the evidence rather than simply accepting McLaren’s speculations and assertions.
In contrast with IOC President Bach’s statement, David Own at Inside the Games believes the CAS arbitrators are to be congratulated. “They seem to have made every effort, most properly in my view, to follow the evidence that was presented to them, while endeavoring to shut out the overheated geopolitical atmosphere still enveloping any issue pertaining to Vladimir Putin’s Russia.” He says the CAS decisions have helped buttress CAS credibility as an independent, objective and legally fair institution.
No decision on athlete’s due process rights
Unfortunately, the CAS decided to NOT consider “the athlete’s submissions concerning the alleged violations of his due process rights during the proceedings before the IOC DC… the Panel takes the view that no useful purpose would be served by determining whether the overturned findings and sanctions were the product of a procedure that failed to respect the Athlete’s due process rights.” (page 151, Legkov decision)
This is unfortunate, because the violations of due process have been blatant from the start of the accusations and penalization of Russian athletes. For example, the banning of Russian track and field and Paralympic athletes from the Rio Summer Games was based on McLaren’s first report, which did not allow Russians to respond to the accusations. The failure of due process was explained by sports attorney Ron Katz:
“Not even attempting to interview Russian officials is fundamentally unfair… Due process is not an empty phrase. Without it, there cannot be justice.”
The CAS’ “reasoned decision” reveals that the IOC Disciplinary Commission uncritically accepted the claims and assertions of Richard McLaren. In reality, as documented here, McLaren made many unfounded assertions and misrepresented the testimony of his own toolmarks expert. McLaren claimed that the findings were “immutable facts” and “conclusive” where the expert actually said: “These marks on their own should not be considered to be conclusive…” In his report, the expert added explanations for innocent causes which could result in the same type of marks. (Forensic Report EDP0902 at Evidence Disclosure Package)
Continuing the lack of due process, Russian athletes including Alexander Legkov were unfairly excluded from the most recent Winter Olympics held in PyeongChang. They were given very little time to appeal the decision banning them, and when their appeals were supported, they were still banned by the IOC. One could argue that for many of these athletes, “justice delayed is justice denied.” The February Winter Games were the last possible Olympics for some of the athletes.
When McLaren falsely claimed that “Over 1,000 Russian athletes were complicit in doping,” it was front-page news in Western media. Now that Russian athletes are being acquitted of doping violations, and relatively few are found guilty, the Western media is silent.
Protests in Brazil Reflect Ongoing Disparities
By Kyle Barron | NACLA | June 25 2013
Hundreds crammed into a room for over six hours, passing around the microphone so that everyone could weigh in. The protestors, mostly students, called the meeting in order to better articulate their message after Rio de Janeiro’s Mayor, Eduardo Paes, had requested to meet with one of the university groups. They emerged that Thursday night with five demands—”five points”—they felt would bring cohesion to the slogans splashed across the signs being waved in the street.
This meeting, or plenaria, took place on Tuesday, June 18, the day after the protests first surged and two days before over a million people took to the streets in over 100 cities across Brazil. While there is no uniformity to all the protests from city to city, and—as Kate Steiker-Ginzberg, a 23-year-old from Philadelphia who attended the plenaria insisted—there exists diversity among protestors within each city, the five points coming out of the plenaria address issues cutting across the various protests.
The first point addresses the 20-cent increase in transportation fare, what has been seen as the catalyst for the protests. While this may not sound like a significant fare hike, as Steiker-Ginzberg explains, it represents a “political miscalculation” on the part of the administration. The fare increase was implemented the same day as the Confederation Cup opened in Brazil. Since 2005, this international soccer tournament had served as a rehearsal for the World Cup, which will be held in Brazil next year. Many were frustrated that the price hike would go toward the extravagant sporting facilities instead of improving the dismal public transportation that is often slow, overcrowded, and dangerous—despite the relatively steep price Brazilians pay for their public transportation.
The fare hike was one among many contributing factors to these protests, and together with the other points addressed by the plenaria, reflects grievances that have been brewing across Brazil for quite some time. The second point concentrates specifically on the excessive spending on mega-events instead of on investment in health and education. Along with the World Cup, Brazil is slated to host the 2016 Olympics.
This taps into the broader question of who benefits from these mega-events. While the country is pouring massive amounts of public funds into the construction and improvement of stadiums, some people complain of the poor state of public infrastructure, hospital overcrowding, and low educational performance in Brazil. As soccer-player-turned-congressman Romário de Souza Faria criticizes, the money for the World Cup could have been used for “8,000 new schools, 39,000 school buses or 28,000 sports courts in the whole country.”
Cost benefit analysis of mega–events shows that these exorbitant affairs rarely deliver many of the economic outcomes promised. While it is estimated that Brazil will spend over $12.5 billion in preparation for the World Cup, it looks as though private interests are the ones poised to benefit most from these events. FIFA reported a profit of $202 million from the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. As their financial statement boasts, “The 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa™ was a huge success, a fact that was reflected by its financial result.” Most of these profits are a result of selling broadcasting rights and sponsorships, with a smaller percentage coming from ticket prices. Similarly, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) garnered $250 million from the last Olympic games, the majority of those profits coming from television licensing.
Furthermore, Brazil has spent over $473 million in public funds on improvements to the Maracanã, Rio de Janeiro’s iconic soccer stadium, which will host the World Cup Final as well as stage the opening and closing ceremonies of the Olympic games. This investment was on top of the almost $300 million that had been spent on renovations to the stadium during the last 15 years. Earlier this year, after months of negotiations, Maracanã was privatized with the granting of a 35-year contract to a consortium of investors for a comparatively low price tag of $85 million. After public outcry over the deal, a judge reversed the ruling, citing irregularities and claiming that one of the companies involved in the deal had an unfair advantage in the process. Finally, on May 13, the judgment was reversed again, allowing the privatization to continue. Beyond the importance as the site for the most high-profile moments in the upcoming mega-events, the stadium has long been a cultural symbol for Brazil. According to Steiker-Ginzberg, “this major symbol of democracy and public space and class intermingling in the city is now being destroyed and privatized.”
The megalopolises of Rio and São Paulo are not the only places the public’s money is being spent. Throughout Brazil, $13.9 million will be put toward preparing for the World Cup and the Olympics. In many of these places, such as the northeastern city of Manaus, the excessive and over-budget spending does not seem justified. This is especially true considering that after the games are over, Manaus’s $246 million Amazonia Arena is predicted to be underutilized in the city of 2.3 million people. This could be true of other stadiums around Brazil as well—Brasília, Cuiabá, and Natal simply don’t have clubs with a following that would justify the investment over the long term.
The third concern of the plenaria focused on the criminalization of protests and the militarized response of the police to demonstrations. Social media has been rife with images of the riot police with Choque emblazoned on their shields, indicating they are “shock troops,” shooting rubber bullets, using pepper spray, and hurling seemingly endless canisters of tear gas at protestors. These crowd-control tactics have been so aggressive that some have termed this the Vinegar Revolution, in reference to the palliative effects the common kitchen staple has against tear gas. As Brazil and Security Policy expert Joseph Bateman explained in an interview with the Washington Office on Latin America, while other sectors throughout the government have opened up to civil participation since the end of the military dictatorship in 1985, the security sector has only just begun to do so, and “a lot of police still see their role as protecting the state, not protecting citizens.” This has been especially salient in São Paulo, where protests intensified in response to images of police brutality, particularly against journalists, that circulated on social media. Shock police shot a journalist, Juliana Vallone, at point-blank range in the face.
This violence against protestors is tied into the fourth point, which aims to democratize the media. There has been criticism that the major media networks, primarily O Globo, have been concentrating on the vandalism and violence of the protestors while largely ignoring the police brutality against the protestors. The fixation on the violent aspects of the protests is also at the expense of the reporting of the largely peaceful expression coming from the majority of protestors. As a university professor remarked after recently arriving for a visit to her native Rio de Janeiro, “it’s sad that some television stations only show the destruction and fail to show the people that want a better Brazil.”
The fifth point concerns the forced evictions and community removals resulting from the major urban transformation taking place in Brazil. In 2012 in São Paulo, 2,000 riot police were called in to suppress the uprising of more than 6,000 residents who refused eviction in the community of Pinheirinho. Many of these evictions throughout Brazil are being done in preparation for the World Cup and Olympics. Rio’s oldest favela, Providência, has lost its central square—the community’s only public space—to Olympic construction. Almost 5,000 residents are slated for eviction in this community alone. Altogether 170,000people throughout Brazil are facing removal or have already been evicted. The Popular Committee for the World Cup and the Olympics, a human rights group based in Rio, estimates that over 10,000 families will be affected in Rio de Janeiro alone because of these mega-events.
These forced evictions have been taking place amidst a major real estate boom throughout Brazil.
According to Forbes, Brazil is the country with the most rapidly increasing home prices in the world. In Rio, the rise in home prices has been four times greater than the rise in wages over the last five years. Donald Trump is investing in five skyscrapers in the city that, according to the developer’s website, will be the “largest urban office development in the BRIC [Brazil, Russia, India, and China] countries.”
Critics contend that many of these evictions are driven by economic incentives. The city of Rio de Janeiro has used a host of reasons to justify the demolition of the community of Vila Autódromo—from environmental and safety concerns to its use as a security or media zone for the Olympics. It is reported that the mayor of Rio de Janeiro, Eduardo Paes, entered into a partnership with private companies that will open up 75% of this site for private development after the Olympics. His reputation for these kinds of deals recently made headlines after a physical altercation with a constituent who accused him of catering to the interests of developers.
While the government does provide several forms of compensation to communities facing removal, the resettlement programs have systematically moved poor residents away from the high-value land and into peripheral areas of the city with little access to transportation or employment opportunities. Furthermore, O Estadão reported that the City of Rio de Janeiro paid $8.9 million for resettlement land to two companies—both contributors to Mayor Paes’s election campaign. After this was revealed, Paes revoked the deal.
On Saturday, June 15, communities affected by these evictions came together on the same day as the Confederation Cup opened, not far from Maracanã stadium for their own soccer tournament. The People’s Cup Against Removals was organized to “give a voice, to give time, to give space for those being excluded and for those being removed.” The stark contrast between the newly renovated stadium hosting the precursor to the World Cup and the small and humble field occupied by the People’s Cup players reflected the disparities at the heart of many of these protests. “I think that’s something that people woke up to,” remarked Steiker-Ginzberg, “the disparity between the investment in these stadiums and then people overflowing out of the public hospitals and ambulances not arriving on time . . . You can’t just reverse a 20 cent hike and expect everyone to get off the streets.”
Related
- Brazilian legend Romario questions 2014 World Cup (prosoccertalk.nbcsports.com)
- The Last Word: Mr Blatter, the party’s over (revoltadosvintecentavos.wordpress.com)
- Brazil: In The Eye Of The Storm – Video
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From the Archives
The lies about the 1967 war are still more powerful than the truth
By Alan Hart | June 4, 2012
In retrospect it can be seen that the 1967 war, the Six Days War, was the turning point in the relationship between the Zionist state of Israel and the Jews of the world (the majority of Jews who prefer to live not in Israel but as citizens of many other nations). Until the 1967 war, and with the exception of a minority of who were politically active, most non-Israeli Jews did not have – how can I put it? – a great empathy with Zionism’s child. Israel was there and, in the sub-consciousness, a refuge of last resort; but the Jewish nationalism it represented had not generated the overtly enthusiastic support of the Jews of the world. The Jews of Israel were in their chosen place and the Jews of the world were in their chosen places. There was not, so to speak, a great feeling of togetherness. At a point David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s founding father and first prime minister, was so disillusioned by the indifference of world Jewry that he went public with his criticism – not enough Jews were coming to live in Israel.
So how and why did the 1967 war transform the relationship between the Jews of the world and Israel? … continue
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