Nine European Union nations urge funding cuts for sports bodies including the International Olympic Committee over readmitting Russian athletes.<\/p>\n
Published On 14 Jul 202614 Jul 2026<\/p>\n
Nine European nations have \u200casked the European Union to cut funding to sports bodies including \u2060the International Olympic \u2060Committee (IOC), that let Russian and Belarusian athletes return to competition, Estonia\u2019s Ministry of Culture has said.<\/p>\n
Addressed to European Commissioner for \u2060Intergenerational Fairness, Youth, Culture and Sport Glenn Micallef, the proposal targets major bodies including the IOC, World Aquatics and the International Fencing Federation (FIE).<\/p>\n
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The move marks \u2060the strongest collective push yet by EU member states to use the bloc\u2019s financial leverage against international sports bodies over the return of Russian and Belarusian athletes, setting up a potential confrontation between European governments and the Olympic movement ahead of \u200cthe 2028 Los Angeles Games.<\/p>\n
The IOC, World Aquatics and FIE did not immediately reply to requests for comment.<\/p>\n
On July 7, the IOC executive board provisionally lifted its suspension of the Russian Olympic Committee and noted that previous restrictions on Russian athletes, enacted in response to Russia\u2019s four-and-a-half-year war on Ukraine, were no longer applicable.<\/p>\n
The nine European nations \u2014 Estonia, Denmark, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania and Sweden \u2014 \u2060have called for these governing bodies to be excluded from \u2060the EU\u2019s Erasmus+ and other financial support programmes.<\/p>\n
\u201cRespect for human rights, the rule of law, and peaceful relations between nations are among the core principles underpinning international sport and the Olympic \u2060movement,\u201d they wrote in the letter.<\/p>\n
The nine nations said allowing Russian and Belarusian athletes back into competition ignores the \u2060reality of Ukrainian competitors, who are unable to \u2060train under equal conditions due to displacement, destruction of infrastructure, or enlistment in the armed forces.<\/p>\n
\u201cAny assertions that sport can be separated from politics ring hollow when thousands of innocent Ukrainians have \u200clost their lives and when sport continues to be instrumentalised by the Russian and Belarusian regimes,\u201d the statement said.<\/p>\n
In addition to stripping the sports bodies of \u200cfinancial \u200csupport, the nine countries proposed limiting the involvement of noncompliant organisations in key European sports forums and EU-led development discussions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nine European Union nations urge funding cuts for sports bodies including the International Olympic Committee over readmitting Russian…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":803424,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[565],"tags":[64,63,2057,2588,44,10018,2016,59350,588,85,6221,747,5525],"class_list":["post-803423","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-europe","tag-european-union","tag-news","tag-olympics","tag-russia","tag-russia-ukraine-war","tag-sport","tag-sports","tag-switzerland","tag-tennis","tag-ukraine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/803423","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=803423"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/803423\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/803424"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=803423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=803423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=803423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}