(a google search on this exact title finds over 300 million results)
Once again the role of sport in the world is in the news as the IOC encourages sports to allow Russian and Belarusian athletes to compete as neutrals at the Paris Olympics, (while saying it still remains a decision for the individual federations). In response, World Athletics immediately reiterated its stance that they would continue to ban athletes from those 2 countries from competing. Kudos to Seb Coe, a former British athlete himself and one of the few sport federation presidents in the world leading his sport in the way most of the planets humans would wish for; without corruption, scandal and old school white male boomerisms.
3 weeks ago we saw FIFA entertaining the idea of Visit Saudi (Saudi Arabia's tourism board) being a major sponsor of the 2023 Women's Football World Cup. A move which co hosts Australia and New Zealand immediately opposed and asked FIFA to reconsider. The world's largest women's sporting event sponsored by a country where women's freedoms are severely restricted just doesn't add up and many other sponsors and organisations were also concerned about this message and spoke up to FIFA forcing them to back away from this sponsor. But on top of this FIFA are now trying to stop women players wearing the rainbow armband at this years World Cup.
The fact is that as the Ukrainians are saying and showing us, sport is a part of life and when war or conflict or suppression or abuse of human rights affects life, it also affects sport. You can’t separate the two and blindly carry on playing sport as if it can be a cocooned section of our lives.
Other countries involved in international sports with major human rights abuses are China, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia.* All of these countries seem to be trying to buy credibility across the world by hosting and sponsoring a number of major international sporting events. Women's Tennis made a stand in 2022 against China by pulling all tournaments out of China but even that seems to be only linked to the welfare of one player and no other major sports have followed their lead as yet. Instead the money talks. The Football World Cup highlighted many of the issues with the Qatar regime yet unfortunately the money still currently holds sway at the end of the day for many.
Beach Volleyball is directly affected in a number of ways. China and Qatar host more International Beach Volleyball events than any other country. Pre covid, China was hosting up to 6 International Beach Volleyball events a year. (China hasn't hosted since covid began but is looking to host again starting with the Asian Championships in June 2023). Qatar is hosting 3-4 per year including the World Tour Finals and the King of the Court Finals. Currently Russian and Belarusian athletes are banned by the FIVB from playing International Beach Volleyball (although that decision had to be triggered by pressure from athletes who penned and signed an open letter to the FIVB).
So what else can be done?
Refusing to play in or take sponsorship money from countries such as China and Qatar, where clear human rights abuses exist, would send a clear message that beach volleyball will not in any way support the repression of basic human rights.
If the sports Federations would make such bold but right decisions, it would protect the players from being in vulnerable or unsafe situations, and having to decide if they should or shouldn’t travel there, etc, etc. Players are looking to earn ranking points (including Olympics qualification points) and prize money and then having to balance that against their own personal values, safety and comfort.
Players should never be put in such a position. Sports bosses need to show some balls and step up to the plate.
*There are of course many more countries who are not hosting international sporting events but also have major human rights issues going on and we can all stay aware of this using resources such as the Human Rights Watch World Report.
