Community can be key influencer

PARIS • Russia hosting the 2018 World Cup, the scandal-plagued 2014 Winter Olympics and Gazprom's sponsorship of European football's Champions League were powerful tools for the country's global image and gained Vladimir Putin prestige among the Russian population.

However, the Russian president's decision to invade Ukraine has resulted in the destruction of that warm global afterglow and experts believe it could cost him dearly internally.

St Petersburg has already been stripped of hosting this year's Champions League final with Gazprom's reported €40 million (S$60.8 million) a year sponsorship deal with Uefa also in doubt.

The Russian Formula One Grand Prix has been cancelled and there are calls for the country's football team to be expelled from the 2022 World Cup play-offs.

"Sport has always had a tremendous impact on society," Michael Payne, former head of marketing at the International Olympic Committee (IOC), told AFP.

"The South African sports boycott over apartheid probably had as much or greater impact than economic sanctions, over forcing regime policy change."

For Hugh Robertson, chairman of the British Olympic Association, a blanket sports ban could affect Mr Putin's standing domestically.

"Sport is disproportionately important to absolutist regimes. The potential inability to compete would hit Russia hard," he told AFP.

Payne, who was widely credited with transforming the IOC's brand and finances through sponsorship, said Mr Putin risked his standing with his own people.

"Putin may not care what the rest of the world thinks of him, but he has to care what the Russian people think of him," said the Irishman.

"Lose their support and it is game over - and the actions of the sports community has the potential to be a very important influencer."

Prominent Russian sports stars have not been shy in voicing their disquiet over the invasion.

Andrey Rublev, who won the Dubai title on Saturday, veteran football international Fedor Smolov, United States-based ice hockey great Alex Ovechkin and cyclist Pavel Sivakov, who rides for the Ineos team, have all expressed a desire for peace.

"Russian athletes speaking out... will only serve to further prompt the local population to question the actions of their leadership," said Payne.

But another former IOC marketing executive, Terrence Burns, has doubts about their impact.

"You are making the assumption that Russian people actually see, read, and hear 'real news'. The government will portray Russia as a victim of a great global conspiracy led by... the West," he told AFP.

Burns says Russian athletes must also be punished for their government's aggression. He added: "Many people, like me, believed that by helping them host the Olympics and World Cup (it) could somehow open and liberalise the society... We were wrong."

Robertson too says allowing Russians to compete when Ukrainians are unable to due to the conflict is "morally inconceivable".

Payne noted individual sports have to look at a bigger moral picture as "the sports world risks losing far more by not reacting, than the loss of one or two Russian sponsors".

Former British lawmaker Robertson, who as Minister for Sport and the Olympics delivered the 2012 London Games, agrees. Said the 59-year-old: "Political, economic and trade sanctions will hurt the West as well as Russia but this is a price that we will have to pay to achieve a greater good.

"The consequences of inaction, or prevarication, will be far more serious."

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE