To think that Russia should be stripped of the world cup in 2018

[ReallyTired]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-28508509

However I would like to see the Netherlands or Malaysia or Australia given the world cup instead. I feel its more than a little cheeky to suggest that the UK host the 2018 world cup. If Russia's behavoiur does not improve then I feel that Russia should be banned from all sporting events like South Africa was.

Putin's behaviour in relation to the MH17 disaster has been appauling. Russia has made an effective crash investigation impossible.

[Bluebelljumpsoverthemoon]

If we're going to ban Russia from sporting events for their foreign policy then we should also ban the US, Britain and every country that provided troops to enable the humanitarian disaster in Iraq, Saudi Arabia should be banned for their terrorist jihadists destroying Syria with religious cleansing and crimes against humanity, Israel for Gaza and so on. We could keep going until there are no countries with high enough moral standards to participate.

Or do you just want to punish those who fail to bow to western foreign policy? No standards for those demanding the highest from others? The hypocrisy....

Yabu. Politics should be kept out of sport. Anything else fuels further segregation between people which doesn't benefit anybody who wants to live in a world where peace is a reasonable possibility.

Politicians need to get off twitter, avoid demagoguery and start behaving professionally so that countries like Russia can take them seriously.

Campaigns to isolate Russia will exacerbate existing divisions and will lead to serious problems that a poser political class can't control. It's not in the interests of any population to support that nonsense.

[ReallyTired]

Russia has isolated themselves by Putin's behaviour. Refusing to play football with Russia is hardly dropping bombs.

The countries you listed have not supplied missiles to rebels capable of taking out a plane at 33,000 ft. I feel you have forgotten that 298 people, including 80 children and 6 high level AIDS researchers lost their lives. Yet Russia has actively impeded the air crash investigation.

Sanctions hurt normal Russians. Putin is not affected by a shortage of goods. If Russia cannot take part in the next world cup/ Olympics then normal Russians will not be hurt. Saudi has been threatened with a ban when they refused to let women take part. The threat worked.

I feel that Iraq has shown that UK/ US are incapable of being the the international policeman. When foriegn troops enter a country it just results in more people being killed. There is no point in thousands of soliders losing their lives to secure a crash site.

[Bluebelljumpsoverthemoon]

Are these 298 people uniquely special because they are predominantly white westerners? How is that worse than a million dead brown Iraqi Muslims and a few million more Iraqi refugees? How is it worse than over a hundred thousand dead Syrians?

The crash was tragic but most likely accidental, if it was the rebels (and that's only according to their enemies) it was likely that they mistook the plane for a Ukrainian supply plane which they'd be entirely justified shooting out of the sky given the hundreds of civilians already murdered in this region by Ukranian bombs in their hospitals and schools. I suppose they're not precious white western corpses though so who gives a shit.

The countries I've mentioned, particularly US, Britain and Saudi have committed far worse crimes than anything Russia is alleged to have done, they've purposely slaughtered, they've destroyed millions of lives and genuinely threaten world security. Why is that ok? Is a brown life not an equal life or is it just a non western life that is so worthless that the death of millions is less than a few hundred white Europeans ?

[Squidstirfry]

I think if the word cup was booked to be held in Iraq we would be saying the same thing.

Russia is not the place to hold the next world cup.

[Vivacia]

Where do you stop? How good does foreign policy have to be before you get to host the world cup and who defines "good"?

It's about the separation of sport and politics isn't it?

[ReallyTired]

I am sure the downing of the plane was accidental, however the lack of cooperation is not accidental. If the rebels had any compassion they would aid international investigators. Russia has substantial influence with the rebels and could publically attempt to call a temporary truce between them and the Ukraine.

Shit happens all the time. The fact that lots of innocent Muslims are murdered every day is totally irreverent. Russia is not powerless. They have seat on the UN Security Council as Russia is a so called superpower.

[ReallyTired]

Incidentally quite a lot of "brown" lives were lost in both Malaysian air crashes.

[Bluebelljumpsoverthemoon]

So the people intentionally murdered by western superpowers and their allies in foreign countries are irrelevant and those responsible shouldn't lose sporting privileges. Instead we allow them to moralise to everyone else and decide to ban countries that have caused no comparable level of harm.

Meanwhile the predominantly European people killed as a result of a civil war on Russia's border possibly by Russian supported rebels are so special and precious we must do everything in our power to show Russia how evil they are, including banning them from hosting the World Cup.

That hypocrisy is exactly why politics needs to be kept out of sport. Politics is polluted with it, sport is one of the few things that can unite the whole world, keep your toxic political games out of it. Or at least be even handed, if Russia isn't moral enough, then everybody else should be judged by an equal standard. Including the moralisers.

[revealall]

Absolutely ban them. Shouldn't have had the Olympics there either.

Westerners in Afghanistan is nothing the same as Russia deciding to take back a slice of another country by force.

My suggestion is that bearing in mind quite a lot of that bit of Ukraine doesn't mind being Russian is that Russia buys it back. Ukraine population can decide on a price and Russia can buy it fairly and squarely. No war or bloodshed and a nice boost to the income of Ukraine.
Probably work in Israel too. Buy it off the Palestinians instead of staving them out of their own country. They could pay every Palestinian £100,000 to leave or stay in a new Israel.

[MorphineDreams]

YANBU

In fact I'm sure a lot will boycott it.

[emotionsecho]

Sport and politics are inextricably intertwined, they shouldn't be but they are. There are several regimes throughout the world where sport is an intrisic part of their politics.

Also, unfortuantely, the criteria applied in respect of countires politics/morals are woefully inconsistent and merecenary or self-interest elements always feature. The awarding by FIFA of the World Cup to Russia in 2018 and Qatar in 2022 was almost certainly a political and mercenary/self interest decision.

South Africa were subject to a sporting boycott due to their apartheid regime, but there were/are several countries with equally repressive, hideous regimes who were/are not subject to a sporting boycott.

Although I don't agree with Bluebells assertion that the rebels had a right to shoot a 'plane out of the sky, I do agree with the point that if you are setting a moral or political framework for the participation/hosting of a sporting event, then everyone should be subject to the same framework, if that was the case there would be very few countries eligible to either participate in or host major events.

[emotionsecho]

Fwiw I don't think either Russia or Qatar should have been awarded the rights to host the FIFA World Cup, likewise I don't think China should have been awarded the Olympic Games.

FIFA won't remove the 2018 World Cup from Russia, but I do think several countries will boycott it unless there is a peaceful, sustainable resolution reached between Ukraine and Russia.

[GoblinLittleOwl]

Russia was chosen to host the World Cup before the plane crash, therefore their invitation cannot be removed. The various countries involved all have a perfect right to withdraw from the contest, and their fans a perfect right not to watch it, as a protest. I think we all know perfectly well that will never happen.