Talking about dates

The International Friendship Association (IFA) has proposed postponing the World Friendship Games to 2025

What has been discussed on the sports sidelines over the past few weeks has taken the form of official messages. After consultations with a number of athletes and international sports federations, the IFA has put forward the initiative to postpone the World Friendship Games to 2025. The main reason for the revision of the tournament date is insufficient time for the recovery of leading athletes participating in major international tournaments in the summer of 2024.

As stated in the IFA communiqué, postponing the Games will allow for a more representative participation of athletes, as well as will provide an opportunity to expand the programme of the World Friendship Games with cultural and entertainment components. If the Russian government approves the postponement of the Games, the organising committee, together with the IFA, will propose new dates for the tournament.
Initially scheduled for September, the World Friendship Games have received applications from almost 2,500 athletes from 127 countries to compete in 36 sports in Moscow and Yekaterinburg. However, IFA Secretary General Jérôme Valcke has now explained to the website insidethegames.biz that the postponement requested by the IFA is logical, “Why have the Games this year, which is in terms of a multi-sport event focused on Paris 2024? I always thought that 2024 was not the correct year to have them and definitely 2025 is much better.”
Valcke served as FIFA Secretary General from 2007 to 2015. According to him, “Russia is a country that has organised many major international sporting events over the past decades. The FIFA World Cup in 2018, as well as many other international competitions, such as the Winter and Summer Olympic Games. Today Russia is in a different situation, and the idea behind the World Friendship Games was to organise another important multi-sport event.” Valcke has denied that there are any reasons for the postponement other than those mentioned, and confirmed that ‘all the organisational structure is in place’.
Valcke admitted that ‘there are always challenges when you want to start a new project’. The manager remained adamant towards those criticising and boycotting the Friendship Games, “I thought sports is about friendship without politics or discrimination involved. The Russian athletes have the right, as the Belarusian, to be part of competitions. They can have an event organised in their homeland in 2025 and again not against other event organisers.”
The media, including Russian ones, now agree that it may be strategically more important for the Friendship Games organisers not just to tick a box and report on their holding despite the opposition on the part of the IOC and WADA, but to create a strong foothold on the basis of the World Friendship Games so as to unite forces advocating for sports outside politics. It is hard to argue with that. However, the Russian government has not yet made an official decision on the IFA initiative.

MEANWHILE

Following Games of the Future held in Russia with great success, the IOC has approved the decision to create the Olympic Esports Games. The decision was made unanimously at the 142nd IOC Session, which took place in Paris. The first Olympic Esports Games will be organised in Saudi Arabia in 2025.

By Kirill Knyazev