BERLIN : The Olympic movement is facing its biggest dilemma since the Cold War: bow to demands to ban Russian and Belarusian athletes or risk the first mass boycott of the Games in 40 years.The International Olympic Committee (IOC) and several of the most powerful national Olympic committees hate the idea
BERLIN : The Olympic movement is facing its biggest dilemma since the Cold War: bow to demands to ban Russian and Belarusian athletes or risk the first mass boycott of the Games in 40 years.
Despite their fear of another boycott, after that in 1984 massively undermined the event, it appears the IOC are prepared to risk it in order to maintain their"non-negotiable" stance that the Games remain above and beyond politics and that athletes should not be banned due to their governments' actions.
"If the IOC banned athletes from countries at war over the years, it would have violated the Olympic Charter and would not have given the Games its universal character where sport is above politics," said a president of a European nation's national Olympic Committee that backs neutral participation of Russia and Belarus.
"We have to accomplish our peace mission and that is a unifying mission of bringing people together," responded Bach."If you ever wanted a definition of being stuck between a rock and a hard place, the IOC has found itself there," long-time former IOC marketing chief and current sports media strategist Michael Payne told Reuters.
The IOC's TV and sponsorship income for the 1980 Games was less than $100 million but from 2017-2021 it received $7.6 billion, over 90 per cent of it from TV rights and sponsorship. Broadcaster NBC alone paid $12 billion for rights from 2014-2032.
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