Pentathlon leaders have applied to the IOC for a second Olympic discipline: Ninja 100m. They blame a compressed IOC timeline for the speed of the internal decision. Though, Vice President Viacheslav Malishev says the Executive Board had been kept in the dark about the IOC’s letter for eleven days.
The Olympic fencing federation FIE and its Hamburg lawyer announced a purported legal victory over Reuters to the world. I obtained both court orders and read them against that propaganda. Very little of what the federation and its lawyer claim about these decisions survives the comparison.
All 55 UEFA associations stand as one: no European national team will play in a FIFA competition for as long as Infantino's plan to sell stakes in the World Cup stands. In 30 years I cannot recall a threat of this magnitude. Read the full statement — and FIFA's own 25-page FFE presentation.
Has FIFA and IOC fiend Gianni Infantino gone too far this time? Or will he manage it once again: to split the football world with his plan to spin off FIFA's assets into a company part-owned by dubious investors, and at the same time bait the majority of member associations with money?
An open letter addressed to IOC President Kirsty Coventry and the leadership of the Fédération Internationale d'Escrime has been signed by 2,981 people from at least 94 countries. Never before has a community within an Olympic IF mounted resistance and a demand for accountability of this scale.
The panel is comfortably satisfied that former Olympic powerbroker Ahmad interfered in the 2023 election in favor of his brother Talal. The award reveals a parallel civil suit quietly filed in Lausanne. An appeal against his separate 15-year IOC ban is being litigated in proceedings of its own.
Change in IOC’s administration is set to begin with a SharePoint site and joint morning coffee catchups: unsettled staff can ask any questions they like, says the IOC President. During a video meeting attended by almost 600 employees, Coventry warned against negativity, rumours and silo thinking.
EXCLUSIVE: Why did the Greek Emmanuel Katsiadakis unexpectedly resign as interim president of the Fédération Internationale d'Escrime (FIE) in April 2025? Read the answer here: because he refused to send a letter to US President Trump asking for the sanctions against Alisher Usmanov to be lifted.
What I outlined in Thursday's newsletter has been confirmed by CAS' Ad Hoc Division: Denis Oswald made the decision on Wednesday on behalf of the IOC Disciplinary Commission. The IBSF jury was instructed to act in accordance with IOC guidelines. The next day, the IOC pulled off its deception again.
The reporting on Nazi symbolism in The Olympic Shop deserves some background information and documentation. So here is a story about how the IOC basically blackmailed (German) Olympic bidders and how much money the IOC Group paid for the 1936 Olympic films financed by Joseph Goebbels.
Once again, CAS acted in accordance with the wishes of the IOC. The press release on the arbitration ruling reads as if it were written by IOC's propaganda department – no deviations from IOC positions. Questions on the proceedings and the lack of transparency of IBSF and IOC remain unanswered.
The disqualification of Ukrainian Vladyslav Heraskevych becomes the biggest political issue of the 2026 Winter Olympics – with unforeseen consequences for the IOC and its president, Kirsty Coventry, who are attempting to rectify the situation with propaganda measures. Details on the opaque process.
Let us forget the Olympic lie of neutrality! There can be no neutrality when a murderous Russian regime is about to destroy another country and threatens World War III. That is why the Ukrainian Vladyslav Heraskevych, like all other Ukrainian athletes and Olympians, deserves our full solidarity.
Casey Wasserman, chairman of LA 2028, appears in the Epstein Files published by the DOJ. Wasserman is not under investigation, but moral questions arise that the Olympic movement cannot avoid. IOC members are also named in the documents. The latter is a different matter from the Wasserman case.
The Pentathlon Union managed to delay the arbitration process indefinitely, the appeal lodged by Sharif El Erian was now dismissed. The Egyptian had a majority of 51:50 in the second round of voting at the 2024 congress in Riyadh, but the highly controversial American Robert Stull became president.
Read the figures for the 2021–2024 Olympic cycle: more than $55 million was paid to IOC directors – much more than the top-tier Olympic federations (World Athletics & Co) receive from the IOC revenue. The total amount is significantly higher, as some salaries are kept secret.
