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Arabs denounce 'double standard' of Russia sports bans
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Arabs denounce 'double standard' of Russia sports bans
NEWSLETTER HUB
Arabs denounce 'double standard' of Russia sports bans
Oli SCARFF
by Ali Choukeir
March 24, 2022 — Beirut (AFP)
Russia's war on Ukraine has drawn unprecedented sanctions that have seen it banned from most international sports in a Western-led break with the long-standing convention against politics mixing with sport.
For many Arabs, who have seen their own sportsmen and women punished for refusing to compete with Israelis in protest at successive wars, the exception made for a European conflict smacks of double standards.
Egyptian squash champion Ali Farag said "nobody should be happy about what's going (on in Ukraine)".
"We've never been allowed to speak about politics in sports but all of a sudden now it's allowed," he said this month.
"Now that it's allowed, I hope that people also look at oppression everywhere in the world.
"The Palestinians have been going through that for the past 74 years but I guess because it doesn't fit the narrative of the media of the West, we couldn't talk about it."
Days after Russia invaded Ukraine, football governing bodies FIFA and UEFA swiftly suspended Russia from all international competitions.
Formula One suspended its contract with Russia, barring it from hosting its Grand Prix in Sochi.
Accompanying the bans was an officially sanctioned outpouring of support for Ukraine.
The blue and yellow colours of its national flag were displayed at all English Premier League matches in the first weekend of March in a show of solidarity.
It has been a remarkable transformation for a sports establishment long so wedded to the idea of keeping politics out at all costs.
- 'What about Yemen?' -
"International sports associations, including FIFA, have banned any political or religious expression on the sports field," said James Dorsey, a senior fellow at the National University of Singapore's Middle East Institute.
"What they have done now is they effectively have lifted that for Ukraine. There is Palestine of course, but what about Yemen? Syria? Libya?"
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Arabs denounce 'double standard' of Russia sports bans