"The Powerful Blows on the Lukashenka Regime Will Have Consequences"

• 6.02.2021, 19:57

The state budget is losing huge sums.

A strong image blow to the Belarusian regime - transferring the Ice Hockey World Championship - will have consequences. Now our country will certainly not be able to hold any serious competition.

The newspaper "Belorusy i Rynok" decided to figure out what else Belarusian fans can lose and how this will affect the state budget.

No one can give orders, not even the IOC

It became clear back in December that the probability of holding some of the world ice hockey champion matches in 2021 in Minsk (Latvia was elected as the second host country, the timing is from May 21 to June 6) tends to zero. Then the International Olympic Committee (IOC), which had been investigating the situation in Belarusian sports for several months, removed the executive committee members of the National Olympic Committee (NOC), headed by Aliaksandr Lukashenka, from participating in the Olympics. The reason was discrimination against athletes for political reasons and repression against them, as a result of which some ended up in prisons.

This "snap on the nose" transparently hinted that if the authorities did not change their minds and did not stop the pressure, the main sporting event of the last seven years would not be in Minsk. But no one was going to do anything. At the same time, Belarusian officials, including sports ones, ignored all calls to change the situation (there were quite a few of them, and they sounded constantly).

And when information appeared about the possible involvement of the head of the Ice Hockey Federation of Belarus, Dzmitry Baskau, in the events after which Raman Bandarenka died, it was only necessary to wait for the inevitable to happen. It happened on January 18, after the visit of the head of the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) Rene Fasel.

"He hoped that, using his old acquaintance with Lukashenka, he would be able to act in Minsk as a moderator of the ruler's dialogue with his opponents. Obviously, it was naive. But a Swiss thinks like a Swiss. The process of depriving Belarus of the right to organize the 2021 World Cup in hockey dragged on precisely because Fasel had the hope of somehow settling everything. Not because of the money. And the information that has appeared that the IIHF will pay some kind of compensation to Belarus looks strange: the federation is more likely to impose a fine for not securing a contract. And with 99.9% certainty, we can say that IIHF will not pay anything: it is not their fault. Whether Belarus will pay is a question. Given the non-standard moment, they are unlikely to be required," suggested Viachaslau Fedarenkau, the former long-term head of the hockey department of the Pressball newspaper.

It is important to note that the international structure, while taking away the right to host the World Ice Hockey Championship, focused not on financial circumstances or a pandemic but the lack of security and non-observance of human rights in Belarus.

Should we wait for freestylers?

Due to quarantines and lockdowns, the global sports industry is losing billions. Even in the best of times, there were few people willing to host international tournaments. It is difficult to imagine a queue of countries ready to organize and host a youth athletics, fencing, or wrestling tournament. This is obviously a commercially unprofitable event, and to balance the balance, you need not only remarkable organizational skills but also winning marketing moves and a successful market situation.

Often, the organization of such tournaments is taken up by countries that either want to raise their image and prestige in international organizations in the relevant sports or hope to hold adult tournaments in the future that can bring profit. And international federations are happy to give the right to hold such minor tournaments to those who wish, if there are any, and do not put forward special requirements, including financial.

For example, more than a dozen international championships, cups, and championships are planned to be held in Belarus this year. Among them are the European Track Cycling Championship (February 17-21), the Modern Pentathlon World Championship (June 5-14), the Laser-Run World Championship (June 9-14), the final of the European Football Championship among girls under 19 years (July 21 - August 2), European Mountain Bike Championships (9-15 August), World Classic Powerlifting Championships (adults and youth, September 23 - October 3), World Cup stage and international qualifying competitions in dressage (14-18 April and 13-17 October) and other, less rated, competitions.

At the beginning of the year, it became known that the Sports Solidarity Fund, headed by Aliaksandra Herasimenia, is making efforts to postpone not only the World Ice Hockey Championship, but also the stage of the Freestyle World Cup (it should be held on February 13 in Raubichi). According to the executive director of the fund, Aliaksandr Apeikin, "world champion Aliaksandra Ramanouskaya and Mikalai Kazeka, the legendary coach who raised four Olympic champions, fell under the discrimination of the authorities. In general, the entire freestyle team did not hide their position; the athletes wrote several only letters of protest signed by the entire team. The International Ski Federation (FIS) has this information and understands that it is impossible to hold a World Cup stage in such conditions."

It's hard to say how it will end.

Dynama will be given back to football players

Summing up, we can say that the hockey world championship, taken away from us, did not greatly worsen the reputation of Belarus as a possible venue for international tournaments. It was already seriously undermined. Firstly, by the fact that, earlier, the country's authorities for several months refused to hold two rating tournaments for us at once: the World Chess Olympiad - 2022, which Minsk had been trying to hold for more than one year, and the European Athletics Team Championship. Plus, the 2020 European Fencing Championship was canceled by the continental federation due to the pandemic.

"This has hit the rating of Belarus as a host country. Now, remembering our refusal to host Chess Olympiad for financial reasons, other world federations will be wary of dealing with Belarusians. After all, Minsk has been seeking this right for two years, courting sports officials, arranging presentations, and issuing state guarantees," said Pressball journalist Siarhei Viarsotski.

It should also be added that, in the safety rating, Belarus fell from 16th place in 2019 (near Iceland and Denmark) to 114th at the beginning of 2021 (between the Dominican Republic and Kenya). All this together allows us to say that we will not be holding any new tournaments in the near future. But it was precisely for the sake of holding the European Athletics Championship that the main arena of the country, the Minsk Dynama stadium, was reconstructed, and more than one million dollars were invested in the reconstruction.