Putin's wartime aggression against Ukraine has shocked the world. The effects have covered many areas of life, including sport. In such situations one should at least behave decently. The Poles are showing what this means. Unfortunately FIFA, UEFA and the IOC. have a problem with this. As morally questionable as it seems.

However, global sports corporations do not, despite appearances, have problems with morality. High representatives know exactly what is good and what is evil. Good is when the money is there. Evil when the bucks stop rolling in. They currently find themselves in the latter position.

The company's logo has gradually appeared on football pitches at smaller and increasingly prestigious events. For 16 years Gazprom supported Schalke 04 Gelsenkirchen. For 12 years Cervena Zvezda Belgrade, also Zenit St Petersburg, etc. etc.

The time for the big game was fast approaching. The UEFA Cup and Super Cup, the Champions League raised Russia's profile to the status of ambassador of football and sport, as sportwashing conquered more disciplines and spectacles on which Gazprom spared no expense.

For Putin, sport was an image springboard. The longer he ruled, the worse the democratic world perceived him. No dictator can last long in the shoes of a democrat. Investing in sport helped him maintain the illusion, unfortunately for too long.

And unfortunately with the help of the West. Let's leave economic ties aside, let's focus on sport. Putin has set a couple of all-time records for financing world events, two of which are outstandingly spectacular given the importance of them.

The state spent USD 14 billion on the World Cup in Russia and as much as USD 50 billion on the Winter Olympics in Sochi. Such money can buy the reputation of the most generous sponsor of sport and the brand of the ruler of an empire.

Megalomania fuels Putin; there is no price he is not prepared to pay to go down in history as Vladimir the Great, as the genocide in Ukraine illustrates. The little KGB-ist, an inferior official, undoubtedly suffers from an incurable inferiority complex, which he covers up with his boastfulness, arrogance and commanding poses.

State billions and bloodshed are his psychotherapy. Boris the alcoholic made a nightmarish mistake promoting his successor. Small people's complexes can be deadly, but there are those who can exploit this. Sports bosses have willingly stood in this line.

It's getting harder and harder to find a sucker...

Officials from FIFA, UEFA, IOC. couldn't praise their benefactor for years. Especially as he was able to play on their team. When Sepp Blatter, Infantino's predecessor, was accused of corruption, Putin declared that he did not deserve prison but the Nobel Peace Prize.

FIFA has rallied behind Russia, blamed for state-sponsored doping, which was long covered up by Lamine Diack, the head of the world athletics federation, for a mere $2 million bribe. Anyway, on corruption issues Putin and sports friends got along very well.

When, for the first time in history, two World Cup hosts, Russia and Qatar, were chosen at the same time at the FIFA congress, information about a set-up immediately surfaced. Both countries denied any corrupt activities, but in vain.

Jack Werner of Trinidad admitted receiving a $5 million bribe, transferred through shell companies, for his vote for Russia. Rafael Salguero of Guatemala admitted to a million. More than half of the voters, including Blatter, were accused of "irregularities".

Neither the World Cup nor the Olympic Games pay off financially. Almost all of them exceed their budgets, and they do so significantly. In democracies you have to account for this, but in countries such as Russia, China, Qatar or Saudi Arabia you do not.

In autocratic systems there is practically no problem with money being spent on image-building activities with a sporting component. Some do it to emphasise and consolidate their superpower status. Others do it in order to appear on the world map at all.

The world learned about Qatar or Bahrain through sport. It has worked since Germany was divided into two states. The East German Communists were the quickest to understand this mechanism. The West may not have reckoned with them, but with their sport it had to.

In the 1970s sport was different from today in many ways. The commercialisation process was just budding. International event calendars were not so overloaded. Overall, sport was cheaper than it is today.

Ever since it became a global business, money, not rules, has come first. Whoever has the money rules in sport more or less directly. The autocrats have almost unlimited financial resources, so sport benefits from this in abundance.

The more eagerly the market for prestigious, and therefore most expensive, spectacles shrinks. This is clearly visible in the Olympic movement. It is becoming increasingly difficult to find a 'sucker' who wants to organise the Games. The democrats are defending themselves, the dictators on the contrary.

Torture, prisons, executions. So what?

FIFA, UEFA, IOC. They belong to a civilisation based on democratic values, fundamental human rights and peaceful coexistence. Unfortunately, however, they are lining up with murderers, satrapists, aggressors and even promoters of terrorism.

The money has to be paid, no matter who pays. That is how it works. And that is called hypocrisy. Human Rights Watch, in its latest report, has declared a human rights disaster in China. The fate of the Uyghurs is an extreme example.

More than a million people belonging to the Muslim minority are locked up in so-called 're-education camps', where they are tortured. At the same time, they are a testing ground for new technologies as an instrument of repression.

Beijing has created the most intrusive surveillance system ever. Opponents of the regime are forcibly indoctrinated. Any criticism is impossible due to draconian censorship. So what?

China gets from the IOC. not one but two Olympic Games. The summer one in 2008 and the winter one in 2022. But it does not stop there. In 2015 the international athletics federation gave Beijing the world championships.

Qatar has been ruled by the dynasty of the Al Sani family since 1868. The current emir is Tamim ibn Hamad Al Sani. The state is a principality with a government and prime minister, an advisory council, but no parliament or political parties. It has some of the richest natural gas resources, but also oil.

The authorities are politically avuncular. Qatar supported Iraq in the Iraq-Iran war, but condemned Iraq's aggression against Kuwait because of the Americans. In 2017, some Arab states broke off diplomatic relations with Qatar because of the country's support for terrorism. So what?

Qatar organised the men's world handball championship, the world road cycling championship and got the World Cup from FIFA, thanks to the fruitful 'cooperation' and 'fraternal' help provided by Putin's Russia.

Saudi Arabia, on the other hand, is an absolute monarchy. Formally, it is a kingdom that has no constitution, although the king serves as prime minister. Salman ibn Abd al-Aziz Al Su'ud has a firm grip on the reins of power. Freedom Hause has classified Arabia as a country that systematically violates human rights.

In 2016, a mass execution was carried out in the country, killing 47 people. The vast majority of citizens adhere to Sunnism, a variant of Islam. Religious freedom does not exist. Followers of another faith are punished by flogging, cutting off limbs or execution. So what?

The dynamic development of global sponsorship. Starting with football, through boxing, chess, wrestling, horse riding, Formula 1, the Dakar Rally, Formula E, snooker, golf, tennis, there are sponsors everywhere. Of course, they are most prominent in football.

In 2021, a historic transaction took place. The Saudis bought out Newcastle United and the club was headed by Prince Muhammad ibn Salman. An interesting figure who remains in the shadows but is the diamond of sports marketing in the kingdom's crown.

He was advised to sponsor football by a warm friend, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, and even introduced by him to the milieu. Today Infantino, Putin and he are almost three friends off the pitch.

Simply a prank

In the above context, the current tangles of the largest and richest federations of international sport are downright pathetic. The armed aggression against Ukraine confirmed that the king is naked. While bombs were falling there, they were trying to figure out how to play out the barraige. It is simply embarrassing.

When they got kicked in the ass, no doubt by their political promoters, they started to invent sanctions against Russian sport and Russian athletes. But without bravado, rather half-heartedly. The IOC. announced that it cannot be so, because the Olympic spirit has been broken.

Nothing about the murder of children and women. Nothing about ruined cities and settlements. Nothing about Putin's crimes against civilians. In a more gentle and cultured way, so that it does not accidentally hurt anyone.

Infantino stands on his head not to piss off or offend his benefactor. The boy is faced with a classic dilemma - how to eat cake and have cake? He is not doing so well, juggling with terms. He is in a panic, because at the end of the tunnel a bright banner reading Gazprom may go out.

Some Russian athletes feel sorry for themselves, saying that they are not guilty of anything, so why should they be punished? Vladek Komar, of saintly memory, would have a ready answer to this. "The shortest way to reason leads through the arse".

Ukraine was not invaded by the Mongols, but by the Russians. Russian athletes are citizens of an aggressor country that is committing genocide. They are not only citizens of an evil empire. They are its idols, its image-builders of dictatorship. You need to grow up kids!

Paradoxically, the behaviour of important sports activists confirms the iconic Olympic principle that sport has nothing to do with politics and should not have. Only in a deformed and unacceptable way.

Nothing about the war in Ukraine, nothing about the persecution of the Uighurs, nothing about the terrorism of the Qataris or the execution of dissenters in Saudi Arabia. The most important thing is to keep the money coming in. It is our home, and the only concrete thing is profit. After all, we are apolitical!

Bloody hell, this was not supposed to happen! Sport was supposed to be an example of clean play. Peace and friendship between nations. A noble inspiration for personal development in the pursuit of excellence. A school of character, a source of values and principles. But people have screwed it up.

I don't want to talk about nonsense like who are we going to play in the play-offs or what about the volleyball World Cup? War is not the time for fun and games. Demagogy along the lines of 'let's show Putin that good wins, so let's live a normal life' will not work.

Nothing is normal today and nothing will be normal as long as there is an oppressor sitting in the Kremlin. Now there is nothing more important than stopping a war that could set the world on fire. I commend this to the attention of the sports dignitaries who so willingly collaborated with Putin.

Get a grip on yourselves, boys! Rather, focus on how to cut off the source of evil. Stop trying to figure out what to do to avoid being cut off. Because if the former fails, the latter won't matter. We all live on the same planet.

However, you cannot blame everything on globalisation. It does, of course, have its positive and negative sides. On the positive side, for example, in every country on earth you know where to find a hamburger or in which sector of Lidl you can find jeans.

The negative is that which was supposed to be positive, namely global uniformity. When one link breaks, the whole chain falls apart. And so it is now with Putin's war in Ukraine and sport. The flow of Russian cash could be interrupted. And that spells disaster for sport.

Not because it had to be that way. Only because of the greed, convenience and hypocrisy of the corporations that run the sport. And, in practice, by selling off hard-won ideals for easy money. I fear this will not change.

Even after the happy ending of the war tragedy, dictators with fortunes will not disappear from this planet. There will always be one who shouts - I give! On the other side he will hear - let's take it! Let us hope that there are as few of them as possible in sport.

– Marek Jóźwik
– Translated by Tomasz Krzyżanowski