In an emergency meeting on March 2, the FIL executive officially condemned the attack by Russia with Belarusian support on Ukraine. Russia’s federation, athletes and officials have been banned from participating and hosting events. Russian representatives in the executive and other bodies were suspended, the FIL executive also wanted “open an investigation into certain derogatory and disturbing social media posts by Russian athletes against Ukraine”.
All these measures have been lifted since the decision of the FIL Arbitration Court on Thursday (04/07/2022), as the association announced. The FIL Executive announced a review of the Arbitral Tribunal’s decision. “The members of the FIL executive, but also the majority of the member federations of the FIL cannot and do not want to behave neutrally regarding the war of aggression by Russia against Ukraine.”, the FIL executive announced on Monday (April 11, 2022). Russia’s association also achieved another partial success.
Association exclusion fails, but Russian officials are suspended
At an extraordinary FIL congress in Großgmain in Austria on Friday (April 8th, 2022), a vote on the exclusion of the Russian association failed to achieve the necessary two-thirds majority. 15 of the 31 voting associations voted in favor of the exclusion, twelve voted against with four abstentions.
A motion for the immediate exclusion of Russian officials from the FIL, on the other hand, was narrowly accepted with a simple majority. Of the 32 votes cast, 16 were in favor, 13 associations voted against, and there were three abstentions. According to a statement by the association, FIL President Einars Fogelis did not comment specifically on the decisions of the arbitral tribunal and the congress. “I appeal to Russia to end the war in Ukraine immediately and to put an end to unspeakable human suffering”the association quotes him as saying.
Ukrainian lugers call on other athletes to boycott
On Sunday, the FIL published an open letter from several Ukrainian lugers on its Twitter account. These call on other activists to boycott: “Contact your national federations and say that you will not participate in any FIL competition until the FIL decides to ban the entire Russian Luge Federation from our sport and bans its athletes from participating in luge races”the letter says.
Russia is waging a war of aggression against Ukraine in violation of international law. The war has already forced more than four million people to flee, and the West blames Russia for the killing of numerous people and for war crimes.
Source: nch