International Olympic Committee urges athletes to boycott Friendship Games in Russia

The International Olympic Committee has published a statement on its website condemning "the politicisation of sports".

Source: International Olympic Committee

Quote: "The IOC notes that, contrary to the Fundamental Principles of the Olympic Charter and the resolutions by the UN General Assembly, the Russian government intends to organise purely politically motivated sports events in Russia. The Russian government created and funded the ‘International Friendship Association’ (IFA), in order to host the summer and winter ‘Friendship Games’.

Apparently, the first edition of the ‘Summer Friendship Games’ is planned to be held in Moscow and Ekaterinburg, Russia, in September 2024, and the ‘Winter Friendship Games’ in Sochi, Russia, in 2026. For this purpose, the Russian government has launched a very intensive diplomatic offensive by having government delegations and ambassadors, as well as ministerial and other governmental authorities, approaching governments around the world. 

To make their purely political motivation even more obvious, they are deliberately circumventing the sports organisations in their target countries. This is a blatant violation of the Olympic Charter and an infringement of the various UN resolutions at the same time.

It is a cynical attempt by the Russian Federation to politicise sport. The IOC Athletes’ Commission, representing all the Olympic athletes of the world, clearly opposes using athletes for political propaganda. The Commission even sees the risk of athletes being forced by their governments into participating in such a fully politicised sports event, thereby being exploited as part of a political propaganda campaign.

The Olympic Movement strongly condemns any initiative to fully politicise sport, in particular the establishment of fully politicised sports events by the Russian government," the statement reads.

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