Are UEFA, FIFA and the IOC ruled by corrupt squads? The time of truth. Poland, don’t play!

On a day like today, when Russia gangly invaded Ukraine, it is difficult to write about sport, because although it evokes great emotions on a daily basis, it is actually of little importance. And despite the enthusiasm of the huge transfer sums of footballers and the millionth earnings of sports stars, it is worth remembering that the entire European football market had revenues of EUR 25.2 billion for the 2019/20 season – a billion less than Starbucks generated in 2021. Yet several billion people in the world live peacefully without visiting Starbucks.

A sport without value is not a sport

But sport is needed more than Starbucks. Because it’s a field of values, not economics. Compliance with the rules, respect for the rival, equal opportunities, healthy lifestyle, overcoming weaknesses, etc. Sport is supposed to teach all this and instill such values ​​in the society. In addition, on the pitch in fair play competition, rivals of different skin color, different political views, and different religions can face each other. There is one condition: they must respect the same values ​​that flow from sport.

Meanwhile, FIFA, UEFA and the IOC have successfully overcome this concern for the fundamental values ​​of sport in recent years. These organizations have long been selling themselves first and foremost to whoever gives more. All they want is to show off to the world what is possible and important. It doesn’t matter if dollars come from bloody regimes or companies that use slave labor. Sport is apolitical after all. Yes, it should be like that, but that is why it should be rather modest, not dependent on regimes that warm up its image in the glow of stadium lights.

But this is only an emanation of the world of politics where it is only about winning the next elections. At all costs. Big problems are best either waited out or postponed in an unclear future. Only here and now, interests and interests matter. You have to roll somehow to the point where there is not enough life left to worry about the impending catastrophe.

Putin had warmed his image so much that the West did not believe it was capable of war

This catastrophe has just happened. It turned out that there are rulers of this world who do not think about the next elections, but arm themselves, corrupt and prepare for a big fight that will change the world order. Vladimir Putin, whose troops invaded Ukraine on Thursday, is not a madman, although some are just madly trying to rationalize his bandit attack. He may be a risky, but he must have recalculated to himself that Russia can bear Western sanctions longer than Europe can withstand without Russian gas. Europe, especially Germany. After all, it was their naive faith in Putin’s good intentions that led to the fact that the largest economy in Europe, on which the entire continent depends, extinguished its nuclear power plants in order to make its economy dependent on Russian gas before switching to renewable energy sources entirely.

And sport was a perfect fit for this trust-building strategy. The Olympics in Sochi and then the World Cup in Russia did the job. They were like the 1936 Olympics in Berlin for Adolf Hitler. Today it is full of narratives that the leader of the Third Reich turned it into a great propaganda machine of Nazism. But this is only part of the truth and the vision that Leni Riefenstahl later exposed in her film “The Olympics”. The Olympics in Berlin in Germany did not do so well for Hitler, because 100,000 people in the stadium cheered for the black American Jesse Owens, who from the perspective of Nazism was a sub-human.

Hitler won the Games primarily in the West. The games were conducted efficiently and safely, the Germans were friendly and open. There were no excesses in the stands. And Hitler showed himself as a statesman who is not ideologically angry because he allowed the host country to be represented by Jewish sportsmen.

Are UEFA, FIFA and the IOC ruled by corrupt rogues? Now I will find it out

And Putin also made his image warmer in the spotlight. The heads of FIFA and the IOC were very eager to pose with him for photos. And neither of them wanted to believe that the same Putin would invade Ukraine in four years to rebuild the Soviet Union.

And now FIFA, UEFA, the IOC and other sports organizations will answer whether they are ruled by corrupt rogues or by real sportsmen who prefer it to be more modest and dignified. If they really are for values, then they should exclude Russia and its teams from international rivalry. After all, sport cannot be combined with politics. This is the basic rule. And now every game with Russia, every performance of its national anthem, will be a political manifesto: nothing happened. It will be a recognition that a state that gangly attacks a neighbor is just as reliable a member of the international community as everyone else. Even if Russia loses the match, it will still win in propaganda.

There was already such a situation when the international community excluded Yugoslavia. It happened in 1992, when she supported the ethnic purges of Serbs during the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. At that time, Yugoslavia was a strong country in terms of sports, but of little economic importance. It was easier for FIFA, UEFA and the IOC to exclude her because there was no threat of financial losses. It is different with Russia, because it “corrupted” the largest sports organizations as a sponsor by Gazprom and other Kremlin-friendly companies.

Now what to do with the Polish players who are to play the play-off game in Russia for promotion to the World Cup in Qatar? What to do when FIFA turns out to be an organization that does not want to rob Ukraine in a bandit? The only option is not to play with Russia.

If sport is to be a crude manifestation that everything can be bought, that its values ​​do not matter, then such sport is socially harmful and must be fought, not promoted.