He stands as one of the best fighters in MMA that ever roamed the octagon. ‘The most complete fighter in the world’ as his fictional Russian colleague Yuri Boyka says. As such, Emelianenko doesn’t like the treatment that he and all remaining Russian athletes are getting from the world.
Emelianenko is a past ONE promotion contender and a current Bellator fighter. He speaks out about what he thinks of the sanctions over his homeland. Even better, he did not mention any political or economic sanctions, but he judges the sanctions appearing in sports.
Fedor Emelianenko Against Sanctions For Russian Athletes – “There Is No Way Without Russia!”
The war between Russia and Ukraine starts, and sports Federations are in a hurry to ban Russia from all events. The International Mixed Martial arts Federation is not an exclusion as well. They suspend both Russian and Belarussian federations from taking place in events.
“We hope that the sanctions will not last forever. That the European and World Championships will be of full value. But we are developing a plan B to meet and communicate with friendly countries.” – Emelianenko says.
Russia is excluded from many different sports. Russia’s National Football team is excluded from the competition, and UEFA cancels sponsorships with Russian companies. Furthermore, UEFA moves the Champions League Final to Paris instead of Sankt Petersburg as initially planned.
“However, does all of this make any sense?” – Emelianenko asks. The sportsmen are not guilty of any crime that their country may be committing. I mean, sanctions on sportsmen that publicly give statements supportive of the war would make sense. But excluding ‘all that is Russian’ from the world seems like a little bit too much.
The International Olympic Committee urges all sports to exclude Russian athletes from competition. For the ban, they give a reason in the open letter as well. “Due to a need to protect the integrity of global sports competitions and for the safety of all the participants” – the letter states.
The safety of all participants? Are all Russian athletes hooligans all of a sudden? Why bring up politics into the world of sports to that extent?
“Somehow it turns out that we have always had the slogan “keep politics out of sports”, but politics is the first thing that hits sports.” – Emelianenko says.
There is no justification for the war in Ukraine whatsoever. It is wrong on so many levels and extents. But, while people are dying, the world takes some utterly inferior measures. So low in fact, that it expresses the rage over Russia’s politics through sports.
“We hope that the sanctioning countries will finally come to their senses. They will understand that there is no way without Russia.” – he adds.
Finally, there is a way without Russia, but is it the right one? There are so many wars raging in the world. Yet, we don’t see the banning of players from these countries from sports. Google the current wars around the globe. If we ban them all there will be no one left to play.
