MOSCOW, November 23, Sergey Fuks. General Director of the Olympic Committee Russia (ROC) Vladimir Sengleev, during a speech on the topic “Russian Olympic Movement. Challenges and Prospects,” said that international sports federations are using sanctions against Russia as a source of additional income.
In March, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) recommended that Russian and Belarusian athletes be allowed to participate in international competitions in a neutral status if they are not associated with the military structures of the countries and have not spoken out in support of the SVO in Ukraine. Some international federations faced problems when deciding on the return of Russian athletes, since the authorities of some countries refused to host Russians.
“”The most interesting thing is that verification for an athlete is paid. They check through the media any public connections with CSKA, Dynamo, participation in award ceremonies, competitions, and so on. For example, in gymnastics such a verification for an athlete costs three thousand francs , for staff – one and a half thousand francs. The climbing federation asks for the same thing five thousand francs. Archery – 750 euros. We see that international federations consider all sanctions against Russia as generating additional income. These are clearly discriminatory things. More about the ban “for the performance of athletes from societies associated with the law enforcement agencies – CSKA and Dynamo – this is 45% of our team. And they gave 55% of the medals at the Olympics. That is, we are talking about the leaders of the Russian team. This has a very strong influence on winning leadership positions” , – said Sengleyev.
“Individually neutral athletes cannot be representatives of the Russian Federation. They cannot be associated with any symbols of the Russian Federation. This seems to be a simple phrase, but in fact the developers of these recommendations took into account the experience of 2016 and 2018, this is an increase in sanctions. This undermines the economic foundations of the entire Russian Olympic movement “. We are all financed by sponsorship funds, and sponsors want to be associated specifically with the Olympic Games and the performance of the Russian national team at these competitions. Let me remind you that in the strategy for the development of physical culture and sports until 2030, we have the task of taking third place as a team at the Games , no one has canceled the task and, I hope, will not cancel it in the future,” added the general director of the ROC.
According to Sengleev, international federations prohibit athletes from using commercial emblems of manufacturers of Russian origin.
“” Of course, any outfitter wants to see his brand on the uniform. How can we fulfill contracts then? Who will equip neutral athletes? That is, the athlete cannot be associated with the ROC, or with the state, or with a sponsor from Russia. It turns out that he is deprived of the opportunity “receive any income. We are experiencing difficulties with sponsors. As we already said at the forum in Perm, we were forced to suspend the implementation of our contracts worth 3.5 billion rubles, since the source was not confirmed,” said Sengleyev.
Sengleyev also spoke about declarations that force Russian athletes to sign up to participate in international competitions. “Now there are points recommended by the IOC, which were not there before. The athlete must take on the responsibility to perform in competitions before, during and, importantly, after international competitions. Which caused us to ask: what are the deadlines? But the deadlines are not determined. Taking into account the fact that the selection takes place over the course of a year, the athlete actually loses the opportunity to participate in the calendar of Russian competitions. And how to combine this with the receipt of wages for athletes is unclear,” Sengleyev said.
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