Wimbledon's decision to ban Russian and Belarusian players Is a good idea 📝 seanmgregory
banned Russian and Belarusian athletes and teams from their events because of the war. FIFA kicked the Russian men’s national soccer team out of the World Cup qualifying playoffs; UEFA relocated the men’s Champions League Final, scheduled for late May, from St. Petersburg to Paris.
The All England Club cited “guidance set out by the U.K. Government” as a factor in its decision to enact the ban; the U.K. has taken a hard line against Russia, sanctioning, for example, Chelsea Football Club owner Roman Abramovich, a Russian oligarch who is selling the soccer team under pressure. As of now the French Open, which starts on May 22, will allow Russian and Belarusian athletes to compete. The U.S. Open is taking a wait-and-see approach.
Critics point out that sporting sanctions against Russia haven’t produced strong results. “From a soft power perspective, the different sanctions Russian athletes faced, including doping bans, stripped national symbols, or moving sports events outside of Russia, has so far not made significant impacts on Russia’s aggression and use of hard power,” says University of Oregon sports business professor Yoav Dubinsky, who specializes in public diplomacy.
Even Dubinsky, however, acknowledges the potential benefits of the ban. “This seems like an attempt to add international pressure on Russian leadership to stop the war in Ukraine, without the use of military force,” says Dubinsky. “Although this is a problematic justification, if avoiding World War III is the goal, then participation of a few athletes in a tennis tournament is a small price to pay. No matter how prestigious it is, or where the players are ranked.
Wimbledon’s decision reminds Linsday Krasnoff, a research associate with the Centre for International Studies and Diplomacy at the SOAS University of London, of the International Olympic Committee’sduring the apartheid era. “Many other things, including boycotts by various different international companies and so forth, created pressure on the South African regime to finally overturn that policy,” says Krasnoff. “I kind of see the Wimbledon announcement in a similar vein.
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