These past few weeks in the entire world have been rough. We are in the middle of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the entire world is punishing Russia for this, and they should. However, very innocent people are getting targeted and punished as well, more specifically, Russian Athletes. I really believe that this should not be happening as we need to separate the individuals from whatever is happening in their country that they do not have control over or even are allowed to give their opinion due to repercussions. I do believe Russia as a whole as well as their committees for different sports need to be sanctioned, but the athletes should not be caught in the crossfire.

Sports that have already made the decision to ban Russian athletes are ice skating, skiing, track, and some tennis events. Russia and Russian teams have been banned from other sports like soccer, hockey, and basketball, however, only the teams representing Russia are getting banned, not the players themselves, which is the way I believe it should be in every sport, even if these measures mean that the athletes living there won’t get to compete, at least they are still getting paid and won’t feel like it’s them getting punished as individuals.

Speaking of soccer, the FIFA, the sport’s governing body has recently announced that they are allowing foreigners playing in Russian and Ukrainian clubs to terminate their contracts so they are free to go wherever they want, 

“all employment contracts of foreign players and coaches with clubs affiliated to the Ukrainian Association of Football (UAF) as well as the Football Union of Russia (FUR) will be deemed automatically suspended until the end of the season”. 

This is obviously a positive for these foreigners that will get to keep playing safely somewhere else, but it is also good news for the Russian and Ukrainian soccer players since this decision allows their teams to pay them their salary. 

Russian Formula 1 Driver Daniil Kvyat also shared his thoughts in his social media,

“I would also like to highlight and address all sports federations across the world, including IOC, that sport should remain outside politics, and disallowing Russian athletes and teams from participating in world competitions is an unfair solution and goes against what sport teaches us in principle: unity and peace.”

This statement fully sums up the massive difference between the athletes and this unfortunate situation. We all need to learn from this and we need to get behind these victims, because this is discrimination