MOSCOW, April 22. /TASS/. The son of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and World Ethnosport Confederation President Necmeddin Bilal Erdogan has spoken out in favor of Russia's return to the Olympic Games in an interview with TASS.
"I think Russian athletes should be very welcome at all sporting events with their flags. Competition and sports are something else, it shouldn't be politicized," he said.
Bilal Erdogan noted that "all of a sudden, we see Russian athletes being barred." "Meanwhile, Israeli teams and athletes are able to compete everywhere. And it doesn't make a lot of sense," he emphasized.
According to Erdogan’s son, if sport "is supposed to transcend all boundaries, if sport is supposed to be serving peace in the world, it should not be politicized." "Athletes who are young people who like to compete, who like to excel in their sports being barred from sporting events on political basis for political reasons is really not contributing to a more peaceful world, because they have nothing to do with the political excuses that are being put forward for barring them from these events," he emphasized. "That is why I think, really, these double standards in sports are hurting sports, hurting the chances of people going forward, going into these sports, and really hurting competition in a way," he stated.
On October 12, 2023, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) suspended the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) until further notice due to the inclusion of the Olympic councils of the Donetsk and the Lugansk People’s Republics, as well as the Zaporozhye and Kherson Regions in the organization. The suspension means that the ROC can no longer function as a national Olympic committee and receive funding from the Olympic movement.