Former world heavyweight champion Nikolai Valuev predicted that athletes would not take the step
Former world boxing champion and current Duma deputy Nikolai Valuev has predicted that Russian athletes will not commit “treason” and change citizenship to get around a ban on their participation in international competitions.
In response to Russia’s military operation in Ukraine, many sports federations have banned Russian athletes from global events following a recommendation from the International Olympic Committee (IOC).
Despite this, Valuev does not believe that there will be a “mass change of citizenship of Russian athletes in the light of suspensions from international competitions”.
“It seems to me that national team athletes will not do this, despite the illegal sanctions,” said the former WBA king, who retired after suffering only a second career loss to David Haye in 2009. Sport24.
Valuev went on to note that at the moment, “changing sporting citizenship is a real betrayal.”
“Therefore, few dare to do this,” he claimed.
“As for the actual suspensions, all our sports federations must follow the example of the RFU (Russian Football Federation) and appeal these decisions to the CAS (Court of Arbitration for Sport).
“All of these decisions are absolutely illegal,” Valuev said.
As Valuev emphasized, Russian football officials appealed to the CAS in order to lift a FIFA and UEFA ban on Russian teams and clubs in international competitions.
While the UEFA ban was provisionally upheld on Tuesday, FIFA’s decision to stop the men’s team from playing a semi-final in the Qatar 2022 play-off against Poland, which has been relegated to a final against Sweden or the Czech Republic, is still being discussed.
Elsewhere, Russian athletes and officials have described the amount of sports sanctions against the country as discriminatory and even “sports genocide”, with the argument that the principles of keeping sport out of politics have been thrown aside.
(RT.com)
Source: sn.dk