The recent events in Moscow have highlighted again the troubling undertones that follow sport in Russia. What does the future hold for Russia on all fronts? It’s not only football that has been blighted by the countries lack of acknowledgment on discrimination. The Winter Olympics has a huge cloud over its head with the recent fallout over the anti-gay stance of the country.
On the run up to the games many athletes have raised their voice in protest and some have even talked about boycotting the games. It is really an unknown at this stage if when the games take place in early 2014 will any Olympiads decide to turn down the chance to represent their country to stand up for what they believe in. Would the games be hurt if a handful of athletes took a strong stance and boycotted the games? Well the reality is if a Skier or a Figure Skater makes the decision not to show then the games would probably go on as normal.
It would take a huge move either by an entire country or by a major player to make a real difference. So if the Canadian and Swedish Hockey teams decided to not show up, then the top event at the games would have a problem. Sure Russia may actually go onto to win the gold medal but if the big guns are missing then the tournament would no doubt have a big asterisks against it in the record books.
And this might just happen at the 2018 World Cup. The tournament is easily the most prestigious of all sporting events. In a little over 4 years’ time that event might be very much damaged by a number of no shows. Man City midfielder Yaya Touré came out this week after being racially abused in Moscow and said perhaps all black players should boycott the World Cup in 2018.
Now this might all seem like scaremongering but UEFA and FIFA have a habit of not taking things like this very seriously. Time and time again clubs that have been caught up in racial problems tend to get their bans or fines reduced. So there doesn’t seem to be a real drive to fix the problem, and to be fair, giving a Champions League side a small fine isn’t really making much of an impact. What really needs to happen is for UEFA or FIFA to come down hard on these teams. And the best way to do that is to punish the fans, but not by closing grounds off so they can’t see games but by removing the teams from the competitions.
A move like this would not only hurt the fans but placing a major ban on clubs would cost sides like CSKA huge sums of money. That may be enough for the clubs to take the problem seriously and put in place the correct policing at the games to stop the incidents occurring. Although the events are terrible the one saving grace for Russia is that there are still a few years to put a solution in place before the World Cup.
What if this doesn’t stop the problem? Then FIFA should step up and look at moving the World Cup away from Russia.
As it stands FIFA are already under pressure with the decision to host the games in Qatar. Now they have a major race row about to come to a head in Russian. It’s time for FIFA to stamp this out and perhaps the only way to do it is to give the Russian teams and government one chance to get it fixed or get kicked out of the major tournaments.
You can follow Tommy Kinsman on Twitter @TommyKinsman
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