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What will happen to the Olympics?
Photo: Jae C. Hong / dpa
In his famous novel »Berlin Alexanderplatz« Alfred Döblin looks at the year 1928 of his antihero Franz Biberkopf.
Everything is dreary, depressing, cold.
His conclusion leads to the sentence: "It will be even colder next year."
A look at the sporting year 2021 can be concluded in a similar way.
A year in which the tennis player Peng Shuai disappeared in China for weeks, a year in which the Belarusian sprinter Kristina Timanovskaya was to be abducted from the Olympic Games, a year in which almost as much about the regime of Hungary at the European Football Championship Viktor Orbán was talked about like Joachim Löw.
And everything from January 1st to December 31st under the thumb of the pandemic.
A very cold year of sports.
It'll be even colder next year.
It will be the sporting year of a guilty conscience: the Olympic Games in Beijing in February, the sad Autumn Desert World Cup in Qatar in November / December.
And as if that weren't enough, the Champions League final will take place in Saint Petersburg in May.
China, Russia, Qatar.
The trio infernals of world sport.
Perverted values
It is certainly a low point in the history of sports, the awarding of the world's two largest sporting events within a year to countries that pervert the values that sport should actually deserve: fairness, health, individuality, justice, equal opportunities for everyone - everyone this is in contradiction to the Hong Kong and Uyghur policies of China, to deal with workers, with women, with homosexuals in Qatar.
Nothing there is fresh, pious, happy, free.
The officials disguise their award decisions with the perfidious argument that such events could help to improve conditions in the country.
How much was shown by the 2008 Summer Games in Beijing, the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi and the World Cup in Russia.
Nothing moved.
Nothing has changed because, although there was a lot of talk about human rights in advance, the events themselves then had to be as clean as possible.
Just no provocation, no political statements during the games.
The only one who is then allowed to put politics on the agenda is the IOC President himself.
And this agenda is just Thomas Bach's very own agenda.
Disrupt the party
The games and the world championships could become a stage for the respective regimes, festivals for those in power, clouded by the incense of the functionaries.
A break in this staging would probably be the only thing that could do something about it.
Nothing is more unpleasant for the officials of Fifa and IOC, nothing they want to prevent more urgently than disrupting the party.
We are very happy to talk about human rights, but please only in advance, on site it will then be about sport.
That is their mantra and that is what needs to be broken.
To burden the athletes with this is not too much, but it is a lot to ask.
You can wish that the athletes talk about it on site, but you shouldn't necessarily ask them to do so.
A chance to make amends
The situation is different with the DOSB, the DFB and the associations that are currently rearranging themselves.
You have an obligation, you can ask them to make themselves noisy.
Especially when things get uncomfortable.
What should happen to them?
For the newly elected head of the DOSB with its President Thomas Weikert, Beijing is a first test.
Speaking publicly on site and publicly in the media about the Peng Shuai case, about Hong Kong and the Uyghurs, using press conferences to do so, something like that is a thorn in the flesh of the IOC.
That is the role that the DOSB leadership has to assume.
DFB director Oliver Bierhoff and national coach Hansi Flick recently made it clear in a media round that they would like to clear up the issue before the World Cup in Qatar.
This is exactly the way the rulers in the emirate and the rulers in Fifa are so comfortable.
That would be the fig leaf that you could wear at the German Football Association.
The DFB, based in the back room, may not be used to it, but also and especially for him: show your colors on site, make the topic a topic on site.
This sporting year is not the year for quiet diplomacy, anyway it is often just another word for quiet kicking.
This is the only way to take the functionaries at their own word: that a major event can change something.
Change only happens on site.
Sport actually has a chance in 2022.
But he has to open his mouth for that.
And where it hurts the rulers.
It's a chance to make amends.
Sport has made the soup for itself.
Now he should at least spoon it out.
