Speech by the Chairman of the IARA Board of Directors Anatoly Peskov at the University of Teramo (Italy)

    Dear friends!

    I am glad to welcome you all from Moscow as Chairman of the BoD of the International Association for the Protection of Athletes' Rights.

    Many thanks to the administration of Teramo University for inviting me to the guest lecture of Karina Zalcmane, professor of the University of Latvia.

    I have already been to Teramo at the invitation of our respected friend Anna Di Giandomenico. I was delighted with your cozy city, nice people of your city and your wonderful university. Again, I am very pleased to be virtually with you.

    I want to tell you a little about myself. I am an attorney at law, retired police colonel, Ph.D., taught at the Russian Olympic University training course "Sports and Security", published over 140 scientific papers and books on the problems of criminology and combating crime in sports. At your place, I represent the International Association for the Protection of Athletes' Rights.

    What is this organization? This organization was created recently, last September, at the initiative of the International Union of Lawyers and the International Association of Sports Law. The organization was created to protect the rights of athletes from any form of discrimination, social injustice and criminal offenses.

     Who is on the Board of Directors of our organization? Currently, this BoD includes 24 prominent sport lawyers from Russia, USA, UK, Greece, Israel, Italy, Spain, Iran, Romania and other countries. For example, associate professor Anna Di Giandomenico is a representative of Italy; associate professor Karina Zalcmane is a representative of Latvia. The honorary leaders of our organization are Professor Dimitrios Panagiotopoulos, President of the International Association for Sports Law, Jim Nafziger, Professor at the University of Willamette, USA, and John Wolohan, Professor at Syracuse University, USA.

     Most of the members of our BoD are professors and associate professors of the world's leading universities. Among us are two directors of the institute, three heads of departments of sports law at different universities, five chief editors of world famous scientific sports and international magazines. The BoD also includes outstanding athletes, World and Olympic Champions, representatives of national football, athletics and weightlifting and other sports federations. Half of us are professional attorneys at law, members of disciplinary committees of various sports federations and arbitration courts.

    Why did we create this organization?

     We see many violations of athletes' rights all over the world.

      Particularly, there are a lot of cases when the social and labor rights of athletes are violated. We have tough times in sports now. The pandemic and coronavirus have reduced the most of sporting events around the world. Athletes have stopped making money. Many of them do not have sufficient financial means to live.

    Athletes leaving elite sports have especially serious problems. You know, life in sports is very short. Many athletes leave the sport at the age of 25-35 with serious injuries. Many of them become disabled. They die earlier than other people. In addition, they do not have sufficient funds for the treatment and maintenance of their families.

    I would also like to point out the problem of labor exploitation in professional sports, especially children. For example, in rhythmic gymnastics, children at the age of 6-7 become professional athletes. They have no childhood. They do not have the ordinary joys of life like other children. Their whole life is devoted to training and sports competitions. They become Olympic champions at the age of 16-18. Then they leave the sport and cannot find their place in life. This is a tragedy. I had such students, young girls; they cried and condemned their parents, who sent them to children's professional sports. These young girls told me that they have lost the meaning of life and they do not want to live.

    We all need to think about how to protect the social and labor rights of such athletes, especially children in professional sports. It is common problem for all countries.

    Today we have another serious problem. Unfortunately, the rights of athletes began to be violated by international sports organizations under the influence of various political forces. Politicians began to use sports as a geopolitical platform to fight each other. Politicians don't care about the fate of athletes. Politicians are concerned only with their own geopolitical interests. A good example of such actions of politicians is the doping scandal in Russian sports.

      I would like to express my personal point of view regarding these events.

      In my opinion, one side grossly violated international law and criminal law, falsified samples of athletes in their laboratories, then publicly admitted own guilt, wrote letters of apology to WADA and the International Olympic Committee, however don’t  punish officials for these crimes.

      The other side closely watched these events, recorded all these violations for a long time with one purpose in order to convict of fraud and humiliate their political opponents in the eyes of the whole world. Nobody thought about the fight against doping and the fate of athletes or their rights.

     And who, at the end, suffered from all these events? Russian officials have not been punished. Ordinary athletes were punished. Russian athletes cannot now listen to the anthem of their country and hold the flag of their country, even say that they are citizens of Russia. In fact, an official ultimatum was announced to Russian athletes. If you want to participate in the Olympic Games and other international competitions, then you must give up your own homeland, its anthem and flag. As a result, many of them cannot participate in international sports competitions; in some cases they are even forced to change their citizenship. As a result, the Athletics Federation in Russia, for example, is completely destroyed.

    Politicians now continue to violate athletes' rights. They declared to the world that their national laws are above international law. I mean, first of all, the United States and Russia. For example, the United States adopted the so-called Rodchenkov Act.

    The law provides for 10 years in prison and a fine of up to one million US dollars for “international fraud” against American athletes. This act applies to international competitions that are held with the assistance of American companies and sponsors. This is almost all international competitions. Surprisingly, this Rodchenkov Act does not extend to US sports leagues. US athletes National Football League, National Basketball Association and National Hockey League are not subject to the Rodchenkov Act. It seems to me, this creates the conditions for a policy of dominance, political pressure on the leaders of international sports and individual countries.  The equality of athletes is under threat; any athlete can now be arrested at international competitions by FBI agents or other US law enforcement agencies. Maybe the officers of the Russian FSB will begin to act in the same way. I don't see anything good in such arrests for international sports. Such illegal actions of some states will completely destroy the rights of athletes. The danger of this situation is understood by WADA and the International Olympic Committee. They strongly oppose the application of the Rodchenkov Act.

In my opinion, such criminal prosecutions should be regulated by international law and investigated by international courts.

    I am also intimidated by the rise of nationalist actions in sports in other countries. We see this bad trend everywhere. Confrontation and the growth of nationalist positions we observe everywhere. Singapore did not accept the Israeli sports delegation. Egyptian and Iranian athletes do not want to give a hand to Jewish athletes. Ukrainian athletes do not want to go to Russia. Armenian athletes do not want to compete with Turkish athletes.

    The International Athletes 'Rights Association plans to counter the rise of nationalist and politicians' actions that undermine international sports law. Our main task is to preserve sport as an instrument of peace on the planet, to promote the unification of all humanity.

    I am a globalist. I am personally convinced that we must create a new world on the planet, free from wars and military conflicts, a more just world, new models of economic and social development, we need new political leaders and a new moral climate on the planet. International sport should help to create this new world.

    I would also like to talk today about the crime in professional sports. You all know that sport is an integral part of every society. Therefore, crime in sports is based on the same deep social factors that determine crime in the entire society. We have the same crime in sports as crime in society.

      There is a close correlation between the moral, social and economic state of society and illegal behavior in professional sports. If a society, for example, is engulfed by excessive corruption and crime, we have the same sport, with the same problems.

     You know, sport is the front side of any state. We often evaluate the state on its high achievements in sports. Therefore, politicians in many countries are doing everything possible to protect the image of their national sport. Unfortunately, sometimes politicians turn sport into a “sacred cow” that is not available for the activities of law enforcement agencies, trying to hide the presence of doping, corruption and other criminal acts in professional sports. As a result, we are seeing the criminalization of many national sports federations. In such federations of sports, the mafia bosses feel very good and comfortable. In Russia, for example, boxing and martial arts federations are quite criminalized. Athletes of these federations very often become members of gangs and various criminal communities.

    We observe the same process of criminalization of sports federations also at the international level. I think you know, for example, the situation with the International Boxing Federation AIBA. In January 2018, this federation was headed by the famous international drug lord Gafur Rakhimov, nicknamed "Gafur Black" from Uzbekistan. This man headed this federation, despite the fact that the United States included Rakhimov on the list of leaders of organized crime, and he was wanted by Interpol. The International Olympic Committee with great difficulty forced Rakhimov to leave this post, and moreover, the International Olympic Committee decided not to admit this federation to the Olympic Games in Japan this year. However, this story is not over yet. 

     I am sure that it is necessary to create a new legal mechanism at the international level, regulating the procedure for selecting leaders for positions in international sports organizations. In particular, it seems that the International Olympic Committee should establish a mandatory rule according to which all candidates for the posts of heads of international sports federations must be checked by Interpol.

       As you can see, sport can breed both heroes and criminals. The founder of the modern Olympic movement, Baron de Coubertin, also spoke about this. That is why sociological and criminological research is so important, which allows us to develop measures to combat crime in sports, to protect the rights of athletes from criminal manifestations.

     I hope that you will enjoy the lecture by Professor Karina Zalcmane and will be able to determine which approaches are most effective in combating crime in professional sports.

     On behalf of the International Association for the Protection of Athletes' Rights, I wish you success in your research on this important social and criminological problem called "Crime in professional sports" 

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