Asser International Sports Law Blog

Our International Sports Law Diary
The Asser International Sports Law Centre is part of the T.M.C. Asser Instituut

Conference - Empowering athletes’ human rights: Global research conference on athletes’ rights - Asser Institute - 23 October

The newly launched ‘Global Sport and Human Rights Research Network’, an initiative jointly hosted by the T.M.C. Asser Instituut and the Centre for Sport and Human Rights, together with the European Union-funded project ‘Human Rights Empowered Through Athletes Rights (H.E.R.O.)' is organising an in-person conference on October 23 at the Asser Institute in The Hague, to map the field of athletes' rights and engage in critical discussions on protection of these rights and how to prevent rights violations.

The one-day conference will kick off with a presentation by the H.E.R.O. team on their research results, followed by a short panel discussion. The rest of the day will be filled with four panels on different aspects related to the topic of athletes’ human rights, with speakers from academic institutions around the world.

Check out the full programme HERE and register for free HERE

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Luxembourg calls…is the answer from Nyon the way forward? Assessing UEFA’s response to the ECJ’s ISU judgment - By Saverio Spera

 

Editor's note: Saverio P. Spera is an Italian qualified attorney-at-law. He has practiced civil and employment law in Italy and briefly worked at the Asser International Sports Law Centre before joining FIFA in 2017. Until May 2024, he has worked within the FIFA legal division - Litigation Department, and lectured in several FIFA sports law programmes. In the spring of 2024 he has co-founded SP.IN Law, a Zurich based international sports law firm.

 

 

On 21 December 2023 a judicial hat-trick stormed the scene of EU sports law. That day, the European Court of Justice (the “ECJ”) issued three decisions: (i) European Superleague Company, SL v FIFA and UEFA (Case C-333/21); (ii) UL and SA Royal Antwerp Football Club v Union royale belge des sociétés de football association ASBL (Case C-680/21)and (iii) International Skating Union (ISU) v. European Commission – Case C-124/21.

These judgments were much scrutinised (see herehere and here) in the past 6 months. For the reader’s relief, this paper will not venture into adding another opinion on whether this was a fatal blow to the foundation of EU sports law or if, after all, the substantive change is minimal (as persuasively argued here). It will analyse, instead, UEFA’s recent amendments of its Statutes and Authorisation Rules governing International Club Competitions (the “Authorisation Rules”) and whether these amendments, clearly responding to the concerns raised in the ISU judgment with respect to the sports arbitration system,[1] might pave the way for other Sports Governing Bodies (SGBs) to follow suit and what the implications for CAS arbitration might be. More...

The International Cricket Council and its human rights responsibilities to the Afghanistan women's cricket team - By Rishi Gulati

Editor's note: Dr Rishi Gulati is Associate Professor in International Law at the University of East Anglia (UK) and Barrister in Law. He has a PhD from King’s College London, Advanced Masters in Public International Law from Leiden University, and a Bachelor of Laws from the Australian National University. Amongst other publications, he is the author of Access to Justice and International Organisations (Cambridge University Press, 2022). He has previously worked for the Australian Government, has consulted for various international organizations, and regularly appears as counsel in transnational cases.

On 1 December 2024, Jay Shah, the son of India’s powerful Home Minister and Modi confidante Amit Shah, will take over the role of the Independent Chair of the International Cricket Council (ICC). This appointment reflects the influence India now has on the governance of cricket globally. A key test Jay Shah will face is whether or not the ICC should suspend the Afghanistan Cricket Board (ACB) from its membership as Afghanistan no longer maintains a women’s cricket team contrary to the organization’s own rules, as well as its human rights responsibilities. More...

Women’s Football and the Fundamental Right to Occupational Health and Safety: FIFA’s Responsibility to Regulate Female Specific Health Issues - By Ella Limbach

Editor's noteElla Limbach is currently completing her master’s degree in International Sport Development and Politics at the German Sport University Cologne. Her interests include human rights of athletes, labour rights in sport, the intersection of gender, human rights and sport and the working conditions in women’s football. Previously, she graduated from Utrecht University with a LL.M in Public International Law with a specialization in International Human Rights Law. This blog was written during Ella's internship at the Asser Institute where she conducted research for the H.E.R.O. project. The topic of this blog is also the subject of her master's thesis.

Women’s football has experienced exponential growth over the past decade, though the professionalization of the women’s game continues to face barriers that can be tied to the historical exclusion of women from football and insufficient investment on many levels. While attendance records have been broken and media coverage has increased, the rise in attention also highlighted the need for special accommodations for female footballers regarding health and safety at the workplace. Female footballers face gender specific circumstances which can have an impact on their health such as menstruation, anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injuries and the impact of maternity. As the recent ILO Brief on ‘Professional athletes and the fundamental principles and rights at work' states “gender issues related to [occupational health and safety] risks are often neglected (p. 23).” While it could be argued that from a human rights point of view article 13(c) of the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination of Women stipulates “the right to participate in […] sports [on an equal basis to men],” reality shows that so far practices of men’s football were simply applied to women’s football without taking into consideration the physiological differences between male and female players and the implications that can have for female players’ health. The ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work(ILO Declaration, amended in 2022) includes “a safe and healthy working environment” as one of the fundamental rights at work (Art. 2e). This begs the question whether the scope of the right to occupational health and safety at the workplace includes the consideration of female specific health issues in women’s football. More...

[Call for Papers] - International Sports Law Journal - Annual Conference - Asser Institute, The Hague - 24-25 October 2024 - Reminder!

The Editors of the International Sports Law Journal (ISLJ) invite you to submit abstracts for the next edition of the ISLJ Conference on International Sports Law, which will take place on 24 and 25 October 2024 at the Asser Institute in The Hague. The ISLJ, published by Springer and TMC Asser Press, is the leading academic publication in the field of international sports law and the conference is a unique occasion to discuss the main legal issues affecting international sports and its governance with renowned academic experts.

We welcome abstracts from academics and practitioners on all issues related to international and transnational sports law and their impact on the governance of sport. We also welcome panel proposals (including a minimum of three presenters) on specific issues of interest to the Journal and its readers. For this year’s edition, we specifically invite submissions on the following themes and subthemes:


Reformism in transnational sports governance: Drivers and impacts

  • Legal and social drivers of reforms in transnational sports governance   
  • The role of strategic litigation (before the EU/ECtHR/National courts) as a driver of reform;
  • The role of public/fan pressure groups on clubs, competition organisers and governments as a driver of change.
  • The impact of internal reforms in transnational sports governance: Cosmetic or real change? (e.g. IOC Agenda 2020+5, FIFA governance reforms, CAS post-Pechstein changes, WADA sfter the Russian doping scandal)
  • Emerging alternatives to private sports governance – the UK’s Independent Football Regulator.


The organization and regulation of mega sporting events: Current and future challenges 

  • Mega-sporting events as legalized sites of digital surveillance 
  • Greening mega-sporting events (e.g. carbon neutral pledges, environmental footprints of events, the impact of multiple hosting sites)
  • Mega-sporting events and the protection of human rights and labour rights (e.g. Paris 2024 Social Charter, Euro 2024 human rights commitments)
  • The Olympic Games and athletes’ economic rights (remuneration/advertisement)
  • Reviews of the legal issues raised at Euro 2024 in Germany and the Paris 2024 Olympic Games
  • Previews of the legal issues likely to have an impact on the FIFA 2026 World Cup and the Milano-Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic Games


Please send your abstract of 300 words and CV no later than 15 July 2024 to a.duval@asser.nl. Selected speakers will be informed by 30 July.

The selected participants will be expected to submit a draft of their paper by 1 October 2024. Papers accepted and presented at the conference are eligible for publication in a special issue of the ISLJ, subject to peer-review. 

The Asser Institute will provide a limited number of travel & accommodation grants (max. 300€). If you wish to be considered for a grant, please explain why in your submission.


[New Event] Feminist theory and sport governance: exploring sports as sites of cultural transformation - 9 July -15:00-17:00 - Asser Institute


This seminar is part of the Asser International Sports Law Centre's event series on the intersection between transnational sports law and governance and gender. Dr Pavlidis will present her take on feminist theories and sport governance by exploring sports and in particular Australian rules football and roller derby as sites of cultural transformation.

Register HERE

Australian rules football is Australia's most popular spectator sport and for most of its history it has been a men's-only sport, including in its governance and leadership. This is slowly changing. Roller derby on the other hand has been reinvented with an explicitly DIY (Do It Yourself) governance structure that resists formal incorporation by 'outsiders'. This paper provides an overview of sport governance in the Australian context before focusing in on these two seemingly disparate sport contexts to explore the challenges of gender inclusive governance in sport.

Dr Adele Pavlidis is an Associate Professor in Sociology with the School of Humanities, Languages and Social Science at Griffith University in Australia. She has published widely on a range of sociocultural issues in sport and leisure, with a focus on gender and power relations. Theoretically her work traverses contemporary scholarship on affect, power and organisations, and she is deeply interested in social, cultural and personal transformation and the entanglements between people, organisations, and wellbeing.

We look forward to hearing Dr Pavlidis present on this topic, followed by reflections and comments by Dr Åsa Ekvall from the Erasmus Center for Sport Integrity & Transition, and Dr Antoine Duval from the T.M.C. Asser Institute. There will also be a Q&A with the audience.

Download the latest programme here 

Register HERE


[Call for papers] - International Sports Law Journal - Annual Conference - Asser Institute, The Hague - 24-25 October 2024

The Editors of the International Sports Law Journal (ISLJ) invite you to submit abstracts for the next edition of the ISLJ Conference on International Sports Law, which will take place on 24 and 25 October 2024 at the Asser Institute in The Hague. The ISLJ, published by Springer and TMC Asser Press, is the leading academic publication in the field of international sports law and the conference is a unique occasion to discuss the main legal issues affecting international sports and its governance with renowned academic experts.

We welcome abstracts from academics and practitioners on all issues related to international and transnational sports law and their impact on the governance of sport. We also welcome panel proposals (including a minimum of three presenters) on specific issues of interest to the Journal and its readers. For this year’s edition, we specifically invite submissions on the following themes and subthemes:


Reformism in transnational sports governance: Drivers and impacts

  • Legal and social drivers of reforms in transnational sports governance   
  • The role of strategic litigation (before the EU/ECtHR/National courts) as a driver of reform;
  • The role of public/fan pressure groups on clubs, competition organisers and governments as a driver of change.
  • The impact of internal reforms in transnational sports governance: Cosmetic or real change? (e.g. IOC Agenda 2020+5, FIFA governance reforms, CAS post-Pechstein changes, WADA sfter the Russian doping scandal)
  • Emerging alternatives to private sports governance – the UK’s Independent Football Regulator.


The organization and regulation of mega sporting events: Current and future challenges 

  • Mega-sporting events as legalized sites of digital surveillance 
  • Greening mega-sporting events (e.g. carbon neutral pledges, environmental footprints of events, the impact of multiple hosting sites)
  • Mega-sporting events and the protection of human rights and labour rights (e.g. Paris 2024 Social Charter, Euro 2024 human rights commitments)
  • The Olympic Games and athletes’ economic rights (remuneration/advertisement)
  • Reviews of the legal issues raised at Euro 2024 in Germany and the Paris 2024 Olympic Games
  • Previews of the legal issues likely to have an impact on the FIFA 2026 World Cup and the Milano-Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic Games


Please send your abstract of 300 words and CV no later than 15 July 2024 to a.duval@asser.nl. Selected speakers will be informed by 30 July.

The selected participants will be expected to submit a draft of their paper by 1 October 2024. Papers accepted and presented at the conference are eligible for publication in a special issue of the ISLJ, subject to peer-review. 

The Asser Institute will provide a limited number of travel & accommodation grants (max. 300€). If you wish to be considered for a grant, please explain why in your submission.


[Online Summer Programme] - International sports and human rights - 22 - 29 May 2024 - Last spots!

Join us for the first online version of our unique training programme on ‘Sport and human rights’ jointly organised by the Centre for Sport and Human Rights and the Asser Institute taking place on May 22-24 & May 27-29.

After the success of the first editions in 2022 and 2023 the programme returns, focusing on the link between the sport and human rights and zooming in on a number of topics, such as the UN Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights and their application in sports. We will also adopt a human rights lens to sport governance and address freedom of speech, the rights of athletes, and access to remedy.

Tackling contemporary human rights challenges in sport

The programme brings together the latest in academic research with practical experiences from working in the field in an interactive package, fostering productive exchanges between the speakers and participants. Theoretical knowledge will be complemented by exposure to hands-on know-how.

Participants will have the opportunity to learn from experts from the Asser Institute, the Centre for Sport and Human Rights, and high-profile external speakers from both academia and practice.

What will you gain?

  • An extensive introduction to the emergence of the sport and human rights movement
  • A greater understanding of the normative framework for human rights standards in sport
  • A comprehensive overview of the latest developments in the interplay between gender and sports
  • Practical know-how to govern  human rights in the context of sporting organisations
  • Practical know-how to address  human rights risks in the context of day-to-day sports, including safeguarding
  • Practical know-how to access remedy in human rights disputes
  • The opportunity to engage in discussions and network with leading academics and professionals

Topics addressed in this summer programme include:

  • The emergence of the sport and human rights discussion/movement
  • The integration of human rights in the governance of sport
  • The protection of athletes’ rights
  • Access to remedy for sport-related human rights harms


Read the full programme.

Register HERE


In partnership with:

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[Call for Papers] Through Challenges and Disruptions: Evolution of the Lex Olympica - 20 September 2024 - Inland School of Business and Social Sciences

Editor's note: This is a call for papers for a workshop inviting sports lawyers and historians to reflect on how the lex olympica developed within the last 128 years through the prism of challenges and disruptions to the Olympic Games and the sharp and incremental changes they provoked.


Background

The lex olympica are legal rules the International Olympic Committee created to govern the Olympic Movement. Since the revival of the Olympic Games in 1896, the lex olympica, with the Olympic Charter taking its central place, has undergone tremendous changes. It has increased not only in volume but also in complexity and reach.

While some changes were designed to give further detail to the Olympic values, others seem to serve as responses to numerous disruptions and challenges that the Olympic Games experienced on their way. History shows that the Olympic Games faced boycotts, apartheid, armed conflicts, wars, propelled commercialisation, corruption, critique based on human rights and sustainability, pandemics, and many other obstacles.

One can see triggers for changes in specific incidents, broader societal changes, external political interests, long-term internal processes, etc., or further differentiate them according to relevant stakeholders impacting the change, such as IOC, NOCs, IFs, NFs, athletes, commercial partners, television, activist groups, NGOs, governments, host countries, etc. Regardless of their taxonomies, all these challenges met different reactions and affected the Olympic regulation in various ways. The IOC chose to distance the Olympic Games from some challenges and fully embrace others.


Keynote speakers

  • Jörg Krieger, Associate Professor, Department of Public Health and Sport Science, Aarhus University; co-leader of the Lillehammer Olympic and Paralympic Studies Center; Associate Professor II Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences.
  • Mark James,  Professor of Sports Law and Director of Research in the Manchester Law School at Manchester Metropolitan University, Editor-in-Chief of the International Sports Law Journal.


Deadline for abstract submission: 15 June 2024

Confirmation of participation: 30 June 2024

Publication: Selected contributions will be considered for a special issue at International Sports Law Journal


Contact information

Yuliya Chernykh (Associate Professor)

yuliya.chernykh@inn.no


Organizer

Lillehammer Olympic and Paralympic Studies Center (LOSC), Inland School of Business and Social Sciences and Legal development research group at INN University


[New Publication] - The European Roots of the Lex Sportiva: How Europe Rules Global Sport - Antoine Duval , Alexander Krüger and Johan Lindholm (eds) - Open Access

Dear readers, 


I have the pleasure to inform you that our (with Prof. Johan Lindholm and Alexander Kruger from Umeå University) edited volume entitled 'The European Roots of the Lex Sportiva: How Europe Rules Global Sport' has been published Open Access by Hart Publishing. 



You can freely access the volume at: https://www.bloomsburycollections.com/monograph?docid=b-9781509971473


Abstract

This open access book explores the complexity of the lex sportiva, the transnational legal regime governing international sports. Pioneering in its approach, it maps out the many entanglements of the transnational governance of sports with European legal processes and norms. The contributors trace the embeddedness of the lex sportiva within national law, European Union law and the European Convention on Human Rights. While the volume emphasizes the capacity of sports governing bodies to leverage the resources of national law to spread the lex sportiva globally, it also points at the fact that European legal processes are central when challenging the status quo as illustrated recently in the Semenya and Superleague cases. Ultimately, the book is also a vantage point to start critically investigating the Eurocentricity and the complex materiality underpinning the lex sportiva.


Table of contents

1. Made in Europe: Lex Sportiva as Embedded Transnational Law - 1–14 - Antoine Duval , Alexander Krüger and Johan Lindholm

I. The European Roots of Lex Sportiva

2. Embedded Lex Sportiva: The Swiss Roots of Transnational Sports Law and Governance - 17–40 - Antoine Duval

3. Putting the Lex into Lex Sportiva: The Principle of Legality in Sports - 41–68 - Johan Lindholm

4. Europeanisation of the Olympic Host (City) Contracts - 69–92 - Yuliya Chernykh

5. The Influence of European Legal Culture on the Evolution of Lex Olympica and Olympic Law - 93–118 - Mark James and Guy Osborn

6. Who Regulates the Regulators? How European Union Regulation and Regulatory Institutions May Shape the Regulation of the Football Industry Globally - 119–152 - Christopher A Flanagan

7. The Europeanisation of Clean Sport: How the Council of Europe and the European Union Shape the Proportionality of Ineligibility in the World Anti-Doping Code - 153–188 - Jan Exner

II. The Integration of European Checks into the Lex Sportiva

8. False Friends: Proportionality and Good Governance in Sports Regulation - 191–210 - Mislav Mataija

9. Sport Beyond the Market? Sport, Law and Society in the European Union - 211–228 - Aurélie Villanueva

10. EU Competition Law and Sport: Checks and Balances ‘à l’européenne’ - 229–256 - Rusa Agafonova

11. Is the Lex Sportiva on Track for Intersex Person’s Rights? The World Athletics’ Regulations Concerning Female Athletes with Differences of Sex Development in the Light of the ECHR - 257–282 - Audrey Boisgontier

III. Engaging Critically with a Eurocentric Lex Sportiva 

12. Lex Sportiva and New Materialism: Towards Investigations into Sports Law’s Dark Materials? 285–308 - Alexander Krüger


Asser International Sports Law Blog | Sport is sailing rudderless into geopolitical storms - Russia and Israel responses show how absence of rules makes FIFA and the IOC tools of the global north - By Nick McGeehan

Asser International Sports Law Blog

Our International Sports Law Diary
The Asser International Sports Law Centre is part of the T.M.C. Asser Instituut

Sport is sailing rudderless into geopolitical storms - Russia and Israel responses show how absence of rules makes FIFA and the IOC tools of the global north - By Nick McGeehan

Editor's note: Nicholas McGeehan is co-director of human rights research and advocacy group FairSquare, which works among other things on the nexus between sport and authoritarianism. He is a former senior researcher at Human Rights Watch and holds a PhD in international law from the European University Institute in Florence.


Boycotts, divestments and sanctions are each controversial and contentious in their own right, but when combined under the right conditions, they have explosive potential. BBC football presenter Gary Lineker found this out to his cost when he retweeted a call from Palestine’s BDS movement to suspend Israel from FIFA and the International Olympic Committee (IOC)  until such time the Israeli state ends what they called “the crime of genocide it is perpetrating in Gaza” and its occupation of Palestinian territory. Lineker quickly deleted his retweet but not before the UK’s most popular right-wing tabloid newspaper, The Daily Mail, spotted it and renewed their fulminating campaign against Lineker’s support for political causes that run contrary to the Mail’s editorial positions. The Daily Mail does not oppose sporting boycotts, in fact judging from an article by its football columnist, Martin Samuel, it was an ardent supporter of Russia’s ejection from European football in the aftermath of its invasion of Ukraine. “Why should Russian football get to be part of the continent in which it has murdered innocents?,” asked Samuel  and in that regard he was not alone and was echoing views heard across the political divide in the west at the time. 

The west continues to boycott Russia, its companies have divested from Russia, and its governments are sanctioning Russia. This includes in the sporting arena where nobody batted an eyelid when Russian football teams were excluded from FIFA and UEFA competition, and its athletes excluded from IOC competition.  So it seems obvious that it  is not so much BDS tactics that offend people in certain quarters, but rather their target. Russia can be BDS’d until the cows come home, but BDS’ing Israel is beyond the pale. You can see how it might be hard to explain to a child.

Through an examination of the widely divergent responses to Russia’s actions in Ukraine and Israel’s actions in Gaza, this piece argues that FIFA and the IOC have aligned themselves with the political positions of the countries of the global north. With reference to previous sporting boycotts, it demonstrates how an absence of rules has left FIFA and the IOC sailing rudderless into stormy geopolitical waters and argues that they need to institute rules to guide their responses to events of this gravity and magnitude. Dispensing once and for all with the canard that sport and politics can be kept apart would enable sport’s governing bodies to appropriately leverage their political power and not merely act as puppets of the global north.


Russia and a case of force majeure

On 28 February 2022, four days after Russia launched its ground invasion of Ukraine, FIFA and UEFA issued a joint statement suspending all Russian national and club teams from competition. Poland and Sweden had significantly upped the pressure two days earlier when they said they would refuse to play Russia in qualifying matches for the 2022 World Cup, which was scheduled to take place in December of that year. Their message was very clear - it’s them or us.

The Russian football federations took its case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), arguing that  it had been punished arbitrarily for conduct that is neither mentioned nor proscribed in FIFA’s statutes. FIFA said its response was  “warranted and necessary in the face of the unprecedented and widespread reaction of the international community” and that it had the right to take its decision since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was a case of force majeure (a catastrophic event that could not have been predicted), granting it the right under World Cup regulations to exclude Russia. (It is beyond the scope of this article to examine a similar case that the Russian football federation took against UEFA but detailed analysis of the two cases is available, courtesy of Antoine Duval.)

CAS sided with FIFA, noting that neither FIFA statutes nor the World Cup regulations contained any specific provisions that addressed wars of aggression, but agreeing with FIFA’s position that it had to respond urgently and that “the consequences of the military action were a force majeure event”. The CAS panel also noted that sanctions usually apply to the team who refuses to play but justified its reversal of established rules and precedent, by saying that  “circumstances of this particular case are to date unique.” The CAS panel’s comments on Russia’s argument that FIFA’s actions were inconsistent with its inaction in previous instances of state aggression are worth repeating here in full.

The Panel does not consider it helpful to compare previous global conflicts and the responses of other international sports federations in relation to a particular country’s involvement in those conflicts. The Russian State’s annexation of Crimea or the activities of the Assad regime in Syria, both recent examples of military conflict, have not, for better or for worse, elicited the same global reaction from governments, nongovernmental organisations, international bodies or the wider public (whether or not in the view of some people or entities, it should have). The reality is that this military conflict has elicited an unprecedented global reaction, including amongst the general public, and it was the consequences of that reaction to which FIFA considered it was required to act in order to fulfil its statutory objectives.

CAS offered a frank and pragmatic assessment of the situation, but was mistaken in its view that there was an unprecedented global reaction. On the contrary, many countries in the Global South did not join in universal condemnation of Russia’s actions in Ukraine, in fact 40 member states consistently abstained or voted against resolutions proposed in the UN General Assembly that condemned Russian actions, and 50 member states voted against expelling Russia from the Human Rights Council. These included many African, Asian, Middle Eastern and Latin American countries, who, as noted by Professor Christopher Alden, of the London School of Economics, were in part motivated by their “exasperation at Western hypocrisy towards violations of sovereignty.”

It was political pressure from the Global North, via European football federations, that forced the hand of FIFA.

The International Olympic Committee came under similar pressure. A few days after Russian troops entered Ukraine, the IOC issued a statement saying that it was “united in its sense of fairness not to punish [Russian] athletes for the decisions of their government” but nonetheless recommended that International Sports Federations and sports event organisers not invite or allow the participation of Russian (and Belarusian) athletes. 

In September 2022, two independent UN human rights experts (known as Special Rapporteurs), Professor Alexandra Xanthaki and Professor E. Tendayi Achiume  wrote to IOC President Thomas Bach expressing “serious concern” about the sanctions imposed on athletes. They described the decision to relocate or cancel events in Russia and Belarus and not to play their anthems in sporting events as “ sanctions that can be considered as legitimate, as they directly target these States or their official representations” but said that exclusion of athletes based solely on nationality violated the principle of non-discrimination and was at odds with international human rights law as well as the Olympic Charter. In January 2023, the IOC reversed its decision, under what they called “strict conditions”. Russia and Belarussian athletes could participate in competitions as “neutral athletes” and on the proviso that they “have not acted against the peace mission of the IOC by actively supporting the war in Ukraine.” The following month representatives of 35 governments - 27 of them European - issued a joint statement of concern at the IOC’s decision and expressing their support for a blanket ban. “We have strong concerns on how feasible it is for Russian and Belarusian Olympic athletes to compete as ‘neutrals’ … when they are directly funded and supported by their states (unlike, for example, professional tennis players)”, read the statement, which was also signed by the United States, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Japan. “The strong links and affiliations between Russian athletes and the Russian military are also of clear concern”, it added.

One of the UN Special Rapporteurs, Alexandra Xanthaki, came under fierce criticism online after tweeting about the IOC’s decision to reverse the ban. “If my country did what russia is doing (invading a sovereign country) I would leave and refuse to associate with my national identity until it stopped - they should do the same” wrote one Twitter user. “The US waged an illegal war in 2003. I don’t remember people trying to ban Michael Phelps from swimming”, responded Xanthaki. 

Xanthaki and Achium had made this same point in more formal channels, in their first communication to the IOC the previous year. “Please explain how the Executive Committee of the International Olympic Committee has responded to other instances in which a State has engaged in territorial aggression toward another State. Please clarify whether the committee has banned athletes of other nationalities on the basis of the territorial aggression of the State to which they belong as a citizen previously.” 

In October 2023, the IOC suspended the Russian Olympic Committee for assuming control of regional sports organisations in Ukrainian territory illegally annexed by Russia, arguing that it was a violation of the Olympic Charter, but without providing specific details of the provisions it deemed Russia to have violated. 

The Olympic Charter is replete with references to its contribution to “peaceful societies” and “solidarity” and the “development of humankind” and nobody would contest the fact that Russia’s brutal and bloody war on Ukraine is entirely inconsistent with those values, but one could say the same of numerous conflicts and aggressions that did not stir the IOC to act. If the Olympic Charter contained references to international legal norms - to illegal annexation or violations of jus cogens norms or war crimes or occupation or aggression or crimes against humanity - then a decision to exclude Russia would have a substantive rationale, but it does not. And, as noted by CAS, nor do FIFA’s statutes. 

The responses of FIFA and the IOC to Russia’s actions in Ukraine were not based on rules, they were responses to the political positions of the powerful states of the global north. If there were any doubt about that, the failure of these sporting bodies to respond to Israel’s actions in the aftermath of the Hamas war crimes of October 7 surely provide conclusive evidence. 


To boycott or not to boycott

At the time of writing Israel’s actions in Gaza have resulted in South Africa filing a case against it at the International Court of Justice arguing that it is committing genocide. The ICJ issued provisional measures on Russia in March 2022 and 32 states formally intervened in the case, most of them the very same western states who criticised the IOC’s decision to repeal its blanket ban on Russian athletes. None of those states have intervened in support of the case against Israel despite the compelling evidence presented by South Africa’s legal team. On the contrary, Germany has intervened in support of Israel’s defence. The United States has called the South African submission “meritless, counterproductive and completely without any basis in fact.” The United Kingdom’s foreign secretary called the case “nonsense.” 

Anyone who has even  skimmed through South African’s  84-page submission would have to concede that there is a very strong case to answer and facts listed still jar the senses.

One Palestinian child in Gaza has been killed approximately every 15 minutes since Israel commenced military action in Gaza on 7 October 2023. … 61 hospitals and health care facilities in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed …Babies are dying from preventable causes: in addition to disease and malnutrition, premature babies have died due to lack of fuel to supply hospital generators; others have been found decomposing in their hospital cots…Over 60 per cent of homes in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed. …93 per cent of the population in Gaza is facing crisis levels of hunger, with more than one in four facing “catastrophic conditions” — with death imminent. 

Despite these very well-documented facts, there have been no calls in the west to exclude Israel from FIFA or UEFA competitions, or for its athletes to be disqualified from the Paris 2024 Olympics. As things stand, a hastily-deleted Gary Lineker retweet arguably represents the high-water mark of western support for a boycott of Israeli sporting teams. As noted by Karim Zidan, “This discrepancy in handling international conflicts highlights a concerning double standard that undermines the credibility of these sporting organizations.” It should also be noted that arguments to suspend Israel predate its response to Hamas’s October 7 war crimes. Antoine Duval highlighted Israel as the most obvious example of the double standard inherent in FIFA’s and UEFA’s decisions to exclude Russian football teams from competition in an article published long before October 7. “The FUR is no more directly responsible for the illegal Russian invasion of Ukraine than the IFA for the illegal occupation by the Israeli army of the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Why are other wars not deemed so disruptive that they must lead to the suspension of national teams?”

Outside of the west, a call to suspend Israel from sporting competition is far less controversial and has some clear and obvious precedents. In December 2023, the Jordanian Football Association called for all Israeli sports federations to be suspended from international competition in a move that recalls the 1974 expulsion of Israel from the Asian Football Confederation following a Kuwaiti motion. Israeli’s national team spent two decades in the sporting wilderness until UEFA agreed to allow Israel to be part of the European confederation in the 1990s.

At the time of Israel’s expulsion from the AFC, sporting boycotts were in vogue. FIFA excluded the South African football team from competition in 1961 on account of the state’s apartheid policy, its athletes were excluded from the 1964 Olympic games and South Africa was expelled entirely from the IOC in 1970. South Africa was only readmitted to the IOC and FIFA in 1992, which was the same year that UEFA disqualified Yugoslavia from the European Championships. In this case, UEFA’s hand was forced by international law, more specifically United Nations Security Council issued Resolution 757 , which was issued a few months before the tournament began and among other things called on all states to “take the necessary steps to prevent the participation in sporting events on their territory of persons or groups representing the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro).”

In the realm of sporting boycotts, the case of Yugoslavia appears to be one of the few instances where the exclusion of a sporting team - however morally justified - was driven by precise rules and due process. Those rules and processes were that of the UN Security Council, an anachronistic and profoundly anti-democratic body controlled by its five permanent members - Russia, China, the United States, the United Kingdom, and France - none of whom could ever be called peaceniks.


How sport might use its political leverage

Is it possible for sport to safely navigate its way through these choppy and dangerous geopolitical waters? Perhaps not, but it could at least chart a course.

It bears repeating that sport is profoundly political, and international sport is an important actor in geopolitical affairs. Rob Nixon, in his study of the sporting boycott of apartheid-era South Africa, beautifully articulated the point. “International sporting contests serve as a form of national recreation in more than one sense of the phrase. They are exhibitionist events imbued with the authority to recreate or simulate the nation, offering a vigorous display of a proxy body politic.” Exclusion from these events therefore comes at a political cost to the states affected. This means that sport has political power and leverage. Not as much as the United States or Russia or Israel maybe, but some.

The problem is that FIFA and the IOC are using their leverage largely  in the service of the political interests of the global north, excluding some states and turning a blind eye to others. To return to the point of Alexander Xanthaki, if illegal and ruinous wars of aggression were grounds for exclusion, the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 would have resulted in their athletes’ exclusion from the Athens Olympics in 2004. Might all of the UK’s national federations have been excluded from qualifying games for the 2006 men’s World Cup in Germany  for their participation in the Iraq war?  

In all likelihood these glaring double standards are of little concern to FIFA or the IOC, organisations which have grown fat on the billions of dollars in revenue that they generate from selling image and broadcast rights, but they should be of concern to people who genuinely care about the governance of sport. 

So what could progressive governance look like? Should FIFA and the IOC impose rules that provide for national teams to be excluded from competitions on political grounds? Well since they already do exclude teams, and given the leverage that they obviously possess, it would make a lot more sense for them to be proactive and set their own rules, than to be reactive and respond to the political whims of others. As Antoine Duval has argued, it would be preferable if sporting bodies were to “ openly acknowledge the need to take decisions on the basis of political or ethical considerations in certain situations and to introduce proper procedures and rules in their statutes and rulebooks to deal with such cases.”

In terms of what the rules should be, that would be a hotly-debated matter.  The argument that states should be excluded for gross and serious violations of human rights might be seductive to human rights advocates, but in practice it would be entirely unworkable - which violations? Decided by whom? A set of objective and measurable criteria is probably the only way that FIFA and the IOC could exercise their leverage appropriately. For the sake of argument, here are a couple of suggestions.

The ICJ is a highly reputable and well-established court that resolves disputes between states, all of whom accept its jurisdiction. On 26 January it issued a damning assessment of Israel’s conduct in Gaza and ordered it to desist from acts that violate the Genocide Convention. The ICJ issued similar provisional measures calling on Russia to “suspend the military operations that it commenced on 24 February 2022 in the territory of Ukraine” on 16 March 2022 - only a few weeks after the invasion. Russia has refused to abide by the court’s decision. It remains unclear if Israel intends to follow the court’s orders. FIFA and the IOC could fairly easily include a rule excluding teams and athletes from countries that don’t abide by the ICJ’s decisions. 

A second, more radical, suggestion would be to make ratification of critical international treaties that promote international peace and justice a prerequisite for participation in international sporting events. The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court , for example, gives the ICC authority to prosecute individuals for the commission of the most serious international crimes and commits the 123 countries that have ratified the treaty of accepting its jurisdiction. The United States, Russia, China, India and Israel are among the states that have not ratified the Rome Statute. 

To reiterate, these are merely suggestions for the types of steps that  progressive sporting bodies might consider, and as one prominent campaigner has noted, “International justice has always fallen flat when it comes to dealing with powerful Western interests”. But consider a world where Israel’s participation in the Paris 2024 Olympics rested on it abiding by the ICJ’s decision. Imagine a situation where the United States, which has provided crucial political, military and financial support for Israel’s actions in Gaza, faced the prospect of hosting the 2026 World Cup without its national team involved unless it agreed to the jurisdiction of the ICC.

We should be clear-eyed about the fact that western support for Israel’s actions in Gaza has left the international rules-based order in tatters. Future generations may spend their lives rebuilding faith in and support for a more equitable and dependable system of global order and peace. Sport, for its part,will always be vulnerable to a battering by geopolitical forces that it cannot counter, but it can at least gird itself with rules that mitigate against it being used as a tool of unaccountable power.

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