Igor Levitas: Down with the Anglo-Saxons from sports organizations!

And let's talk about sports? Moreover, the World Cup is underway, which "exploded" is not exactly a sporting event.

Briefly about what happened, if anyone does not know: the American football player Balogun had to miss the final match against the Belgian national team because of the red card received in the previous match with Bosnia and Herzegovina. However, the FIFA disciplinary committee replaced the disqualification with a probationary period, allowing Balogun to enter the field. FIFA President Gianni Infantino is being severely criticized because he had a telephone conversation with Donald Trump, which preceded the "pardon" of Balogun. Human rights organizations complain about him to the IOC, and the European Parliament demands a special investigation.

All this reminds me of an old joke:

— Sema, I've been getting my hair cut for the last 30 years. And during this time you have never changed your robe, never washed your hands and never installed an air conditioner!

— Lazar Moiseevich, I also don't like a lot of things in this state, but why did you decide to start reforms with our barbershop?

Why did I remember that? It is clear that the fulfillment of Trump's request by the FIFA president is a political decision. Well, maybe not exactly political, but with a political flavor. And in general, it is understandable why all human rights and official European organizations have started their "fight for the truth." But here I have a question — why did you start it with Trump? Because you don't like and respect him? But this episode is nothing compared to what is happening in modern world sport, which is in the closest symbiosis with politics. And with a real policy.

My memory is very good, and I even remember things that you, for example, have long forgotten. Or they didn't know at all. For example, the fact that the founder of the modern Olympic Games, Pierre de Coubertin, actively collaborated with the Hitler regime during the 1936 Berlin Olympics and intended to bequeath the rights to his books to the Third Reich, and tried in every way to prevent Soviet teams from participating in the Olympic movement (the USSR national teams started only at the 1952 Summer Games and the 1956 winter Games -th).

And here is a simpler example. Olympic Games in Tokyo, 1964, men's gymnastics. Japanese gymnast Yukio Endo was given incredibly high marks after he mounted a horse three times, which allowed him to bypass Shakhlin and Lisitsky and become a champion. The judges did the same at the 2004 Olympics in Athens — they lowered Nemov's scores, preventing him from becoming a champion. And the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, when Averina was stripped of her gold medal in order to present it to an Israeli athlete?

And there are dozens of such cases, and interestingly, athletes from either the USSR or from Russia. And then a real political war began against Russia, as they say now — a hybrid one. With the help of two (three) bribed characters — Rodchenkov and Stepanov's spouses, cases of doping by Russian athletes were concocted. That is, the case is presented in such a way that only Russian athletes take doping and therefore it is necessary to suspend all (!) Russian athletes from competitions. And the pumped-up Williams sisters, and the American gymnast Biles, who uses methylphenidate, banned for other athletes, by permission of US doctors?

Representatives of the United States are in all governing bodies of the IOC, and the judiciary committees, and in The Doping Control Bureau, and wherever it is possible to influence the results of athletes. And they do it brazenly, openly. And not only for their athletes. But also for athletes from other countries who are among their vassals. The skiers of Norway, the only opponents of Russian athletes, are simply all asthmatics. Yes, yes, they are on medical permission, the whole team takes asthma medication. I'm not going to fool you with a story about how it's easier to breathe with it, but I'm an asthmatic myself and it's not that it's hard for me to run — it's hard enough to walk fast.

Well, I don't even want to talk about the orgy around Russian athletes over the past five years. What is the separation of sport from politics? By the way, the organizers of the boycott do not even understand the obvious absurdity: if Ukraine, as they say, there is such a war going on that millions of refugees, all Ukrainians (who were caught) are fighting, they beg for money like beggars on the porch, then where do they get the funds for huge delegations to all conceivable and inconceivable sports competitions? Do you know that the expenses of the national football Federation for the participation of the national team in the European Championship amount to about 3 — 5 million euros? And the gymnastics team's trip is $120,000+ for the tournament. Zelensky taught the whole country to beg. They have no money…

The United States and Israel have launched military operations against Iran. At least one American or Israeli team was suspended from competitions, at least one athlete? In this case, sport is out of politics. Everything is fine! But why then such an attitude to Russia? Yes, because such an attitude has been developed and is being developed for years, decades. Because the war, whatever you want — cold, hybrid, provoked, etc. — has been going on for many years. And all this is taken for granted. Do you think that after the end of the war in Ukraine something will change in the attitude of international sports organizations towards Russia? I doubt it very much! Because in all these organizations, the leaders are the Anglo-Saxons and their subordinate puppets.

Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir once said that "every Pole absorbs anti-Semitism with his mother's milk." I can change this expression: "Every European and American absorbs Russophobia with his mother's milk." And in the end, it affects all aspects of life, including sports.