This is a “no shooting war”. Mr. President Boniek, Orwell will explain it to you [OPINIA]

Several years ago, Andrew Healy of Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles examined how sporting success influences political choices in the US. He focused on academic football games. The research shows that fans of the winning teams look more favorably at those in power. In the districts where the football team won its match up to 10 days before the elections, the incumbent president scored 0.8 percent. more votes. Not much, but when Healy focused only on the districts, where football was very popular and attracted the most spectators in the stands, then the advantage over his rival increased to 2.4%.

Sports victories favor power

In another study, Healy focused on fans of academic basketball and their assessment of the then-president, Barack Obama. It turned out that among fans whose teams won more matches this season than bookmakers had planned before the season, the positive ratings of the incumbent president grew by 2.3%. This effect was intensified when the research concerned fans from places where academic basketball was particularly popular and attracted crowds of fans to the stands. There, the president’s positive opinions grew by 5%.

Healy concluded in the conclusions of his research that positive emotions among voters always strengthen the officiating power. And it happens unconsciously. This is obviously a small effect, because the fans understand that it does not affect the results, but it may be important when the polls of both candidates are even.

This is just one of the studies that scientifically confirms intuitive hunches. Sports success calms down negative social emotions and strengthens power.

Sport, or the great Russian propaganda machine based on doping

And all governments in the world understand this perfectly well. Especially the authoritarian ones. There, sport is an element of power. For if success in sports arenas improves the ratings of politicians in democratic countries, then how much more is it so in countries where the regime’s propaganda has effective methods to link success with power?

The Russians learned this already in the times of the USSR. There, the sportsmen always felt that they belonged to the country’s elite. They were hugged by the first secretaries of the communist party, they were hugged by the presidents of Russia. Vladimir Putin and Aleksandr Lukashenka love them especially. They take photos of themselves, cheer them on, invite them to parliament and ministries, and sponsor them through state-owned and friendly private companies. They even play ice hockey themselves, which is the No. 1 sport in both countries.

Putin loves his athletes so much that during his term in office the state became fully involved in doping practices. Laboratories nominally bearing the name of anti-doping laboratories were working on the new specifics, and the FSB – the Russian security service – made sure that, in the event of a mishap, documents or suspicious samples were stolen. This is how the Russians built their Olympic success at the Olympics in Sochi, when they won the medal standings, and only later it turned out that everything was supervised by the FSB.

Russian sport was built on systemic deception

Kulisy was revealed by the contrite head of the Moscow anti-doping laboratory, Grigory Rodchenkov. It was he who called the Olympics in Sochi the greatest fraud in the history of sport. Not only that – Rodchenkov, who had worked in Russian sport since the early 1980s, revealed that the doping system of Putin’s time was only a continuation of what had happened there long before. Doping was behind the great success of Soviet and then Russian athletes.

Of course, the main reason Russia got involved in sports cheating is clear. The successes of sportsmen – especially in a country where ultranationalism belongs to strong political currents – build the popularity of the authorities.

Yes, Russian athletes should not be performing in foreign arenas

And of course it is clear that there are people in Russia who are neither ultranationalists nor supporters of Putin. Nevertheless, in large numbers, the citizens of this country support the criminal activities of the regime. And that is why Russian sportsmen should not perform in international arenas. Each of their appearances, even under the neutral flag, will be used for propaganda by the Kremlin rulers.

Those athletes who support the regime should not take part, because sport cannot be reconciled with the murder of innocent women and children. Those who do not want to support the regime, because of their safety – that is, what may happen to them by Putin’s hand. He has already called for a hearing with the so-called “fifth column”, that is, traitors to Russia. And now a traitor there is anyone who does not support the murder of Ukrainian women and children.

Therefore, humanitarianism requires that neutral Russians should not be put at risk for their health and life for something as trivial as sport. Therefore, contrary to the opinion of Zbigniew Bono, who is in favor of maintaining this ban.

This is war. And, unfortunately, there is no place to divide the hair into four.

Finally, a digression. George Orwell, the great writer and critic of totalitarian rule, once sharply criticized sport:

Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play. It is associated with hatred, jealousy, pride, and disregard for all rules. It is the sadistic pleasure of watching violence. In other words, it is a no-shoot war.

And the most interesting thing is when the author of 1984 wrote the above sentences. He did so after watching one of the games of the first-ever tour of Soviet footballers in the British Isles, when Dynamo Moscow played several matches with teams from Scotland and England in November 1945.