Russia Out, Israel In: The Double Standard of International Sport

When Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez recently accused the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the International Federation of Association Football (FIFA) of applying double standards to Russia and Israel, he voiced a concern many share. In 2022-3, Russia was banned from international sport for breaching the Olympic Truce and later annexing sports bodies in occupied Ukraine.

So far, instead, Israel has not faced similar scrutiny, despite repeated accusations of mass civilian killings and the destruction of sporting infrastructure in Gaza. One may then well wonder: were the IOC to use the same reasoning it applied for excluding Russia also in the Israeli case, what would the implications be? In the following, we conduct a point-by-point analysis of each stated reason underlying the ban against Russia and test it against verified facts from Gaza and Palestinian sport.

Breaching the Olympic Truce

The core justification for the IOC’s immediate action against Russia was the country’s invasion of Ukraine. Already on 24 February 2022, the IOC officially condemned Russia’s attack as a grave violation of the Olympic Truce. Since 1993, the Truce has been adopted by consensus within the UN General Assembly with the explicit goal of suspending hostilities and promoting peace during the Olympic Games. Russia’s invasion occurred during the period of Olympic Truce associated with the Beijing 2022 Winter Games. Subsequently, the IOC even withdrew Olympic Orders awarded to leading Russian officials, citing a “blatant breach of the Olympic Truce”. FIFA echoed this sentiment, underlining unity with Ukraine and stating that the suspension of Russia aligned with their fundamental principle of respect for all peoples, reinforcing the concept that war and violence have no place in the game.

By the same standard, Israel’s military campaign in Gaza has drawn accusations of violating the Olympic Truce. As a full member of the UN, Israel participated in the UN General Assembly’s adoption of the Truce for Paris 2024, which passed in November 2023 with no votes against. In July 2024, however, Israel repeatedly conducted bombings on Gaza during the Paris Olympic Games, including an airstrike on a school near Deir al-Balah in which at least 30 people died and more than 100 (among them children) were injured.

Although no formal breach was declared by the IOC, UN officials had by then already gathered ample evidence that Israel’s strikes could be deemed incompatible with international humanitarian law and therefore contrary to the Olympic Truce’s peace ethos. Most recently, in September 2025, the UN Human Rights Council’s Commission of Inquiry concluded that Israel’s actions met, and continue to meet, the legal definition of genocide. In a nutshell, Israel’s actions directly undermine the Truce’s symbolic call for a suspension of hostilities and therewith challenge the same principle under which Russia was sanctioned.

Undermining the fundamental principles of the Olympic Charter

Another stated reason for excluding Russia from international sport was that the invasion of Ukraine was a violation of the fundamental principles the IOC outlines in its Charter. The goal of Olympism, as the Charter goes, is to place sport at the service of humankind’s harmonious development, promoting a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of human dignity. Russia’s actions were considered to be in direct contradiction to this essential ethical mandate.

Similarly, Israel’s military campaign in Gaza stands in contrast to the Charter’s fundamental principles. Independent investigations have documented a massive civilian toll, with over 60,000 Palestinians killed, including at least 662 athletes according to some reports. Meanwhile, the International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza conflict. Israel rejects these findings as biased and asserts its actions are lawful self-defence. However, the scale of civilian harm is unquestioned and raises the same fundamental question the IOC posed in 2022: whether Israel’s conduct of the war is consistent with the fundamental values of Olympism.

Violating the jurisdiction of another country’s sports organisations

At another level, Russia’s exclusion was legally justified by the IOC as a breach of those rules of the Olympic Charter according to which a national Olympic committee’s jurisdiction must coincide with the borders of a “country” defined as “an independent State recognised by the international community.” In fall 2023, the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) accepted regional sport organisations from the annexed Ukrainian territories as members. The IOC subsequently argued, and the Court of Arbitration of Sport (CAS) later agreed, that this act violated the jurisdiction of the Ukrainian National Olympic Committee, because those regions are not recognised internationally as part of Russia.

By the same rules, Israel could also be seen to be in breach of the IOC’s regulations. Several Israeli football clubs are based or have been identified as playing in unlawful settlements in the occupied West Bank, a territory that is not recognised internationally as part of Israel. Palestinian sports bodies have long protested that Israel’s incorporation of these clubs violates their own territorial jurisdiction, which has also been highlighted in a recent expert letter to FIFA. Since both the Palestinian Olympic Committee and the Palestine Football Association are internationally recognised bodies since the 1990s, the inclusion of teams based within their jurisdictions into Israeli sporting organisations arguably contravenes the governance rules of international sport in the same way as in the ROC-Ukraine case.

Safeguarding athletes’ wellbeing

In excluding Russia and Belarus, the IOC also argued that these measures were required in order to protect the integrity of competitions and the safety of athletes. Otherwise, Russian athletes would have been allowed to compete under their banner while many athletes from Ukraine could not even train or attend events due to the attacks on their country. Ukraine claims that almost 600 Ukrainian sportspeople have been killed by Russia as of March 2025 – therefore, it was (and still is) unimaginable that Ukrainian athletes could face Russian opponents without additional emotional and mental suffering and in a supposed “Olympic” spirit of mutual friendship.

Notably, Israel’s war in Gaza has destroyed the very foundations of Palestinian sport and created conditions far more unequal than those the IOC cited in the Ukraine case. Israeli bombardments flattened stadiums and left no functioning sports facilities. As mentioned, hundreds of Palestinian athletes died, including “Palestinian Pelé” Suleiman Al-Obeid, and many survivors lost teammates, homes and the ability to train. Many displaced athletes now live in refugee camps without equipment or safe spaces, with no chance to prepare for international competition. Again, based on the reasoning behind the IOC’s ban on Russia, Israel’s war in Gaza justifies exclusion: Palestinian athletes face profound trauma, the loss of teammates and homes, and the total collapse of training facilities (even worse than in the case of Ukrainian sport), while Israeli athletes have continued competing internationally without significant disruption, creating a stark disparity in conditions.

Facing the risk of boycotts

Finally, the IOC, along with other governing bodies such as FIFA, UEFA and World Athletics, worried that Russian participation could lead to widespread boycotts by other nations and threaten the integrity of competitions. Indeed, football organisations faced an immediate crisis when Poland, Sweden and Czechia refused to play Russia in the 2022 FIFA World Cup playoffs. FIFA and UEFA thus were forced to act to safeguard the regular functioning of international football and the organisation and security of competitions. Similarly, World Athletics excluded Russian and Belarusian athletes, arguing that their presence would jeopardise the orderly conduct of competitions.

In the case of Israel, so far there has been no broad, organised boycott movement like the refusal to play Russia in 2022. No major tournaments have been disrupted yet, although the repeated demonstrations against the road cycling team Israel-Premier Tech at the Vuelta a España 2025 significantly affected the event and point towards potential disruptions in the near future. Norway’s football federation debated calls to boycott matches against Israel in protest of the war in Gaza. Ultimately, however, the federation rejected a boycott, choosing instead to play scheduled fixtures and donate the match revenues to humanitarian aid for Gaza. In a similar vein, the Italian football federation had to pledge to donate the revenues of the upcoming match against Israel to be played in Udine in October, following calls by the local mayor and associations for postponing or even annulling the fixture. In sum, while the world sporting community has not yet shown the unified stance seen in the case of Russia, which is arguably a result of geopolitical alliances, mounting protests indicate that widespread demonstrations and boycotts may force international sports organisations to change their stance on Israel’s participation in the future.

Looking ahead

Overall, the decisions of the leading sports organisations vis-à-vis the cases of Russia and Israel are evidently inconsistent. Indeed, the criteria the IOC and FIFA used to ban Russia are also met – if not exceeded – in the case of Israel: its war in Gaza has destroyed Palestinian sports facilities, created competitive inequality and triggered early signs of boycotts and protests.

However, the prospect of an IOC ban or broad sports isolation against Israel remains remote. The IOC, including its new President Kirsty Coventry, argues that Israel should not face sanctions because its Olympic Committee, formally separate from the government, has not broken any sporting rules and abides by the Olympic Charter.

But this reasoning collapses under close scrutiny. The IOC’s refusal appears to be grounded not on principles and norms, but rather on fears that further exclusions could shatter the façade of supposed neutrality and unity of international sport. The decisions of sport’s ruling bodies continue to be driven by political calculations and expediency. Consistent governance standards and practices do not seem to be applied. Now more than ever, though, in a world riven by wars and geopolitical fragmentation, these blatant double standards risk definitively undoing what remains of the credibility of international organisations – in the sports grounds, and beyond.


Jörg Krieger is Associate Professor at Aarhus University and Professor II at the University of Inland Norway. Leo Goretti is Head of the ‘Italian foreign policy’ programme at the Istituto Affari Internazionali (IAI).