The Australian lawyer leading the charge for Iran to be exiled from international competition over the execution of a champion wrestler has rejected the contention it was unrelated to sport, saying he “can’t think of a more grievous attack on the humanitarian values of the Olympic movement”.
From the European Union to US presidential candidate Joe Biden, the condemnation of the Islamic republic over the hanging of 27-year-old Navid Afkari last weekend has been far and wide.
For Brendan Schwab, it is vital that words are accompanied by action. The former head of Australian soccer’s players union now operates in Switzerland running the World Players Association, the peak body for player associations across all sports.
In an interview with The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, he turned up the heat on the International Olympic Committee after IOC vice-president and Australian Olympic Committee supremo John Coates indicated Iran was unlikely to be suspended or expelled from the Olympics over the death of Afkari, who claimed he was tortured into making a false confession aired on state television.
Coates told the Herald this week he had spoken to IOC president Thomas Bach about the Afkari case and the difficulty with sanctions was that many countries still had capital punishment and the wrestler’s execution, for the alleged murder of a security agent at an anti-government demonstration in 2018, was not related to a sporting event. Coates said Bach would take the issue of any IOC response to its executive meeting next month.
Read the article by Chris Barrett in The Sydney Morning Herald.