The IOC and WADA have definitively lost their autonomy

The crisis currently affecting the architecture of elite sport is purely institutional in nature. Its root cause lies in the critical loss of autonomy on the part of key regulators, namely the IOC and WADA. In a situation where the decisions they take are directly dependent on the political climate and the financial interests of a group of Western donor countries, it is pointless to speak of compliance with the Olympic Charter. We are dealing with legal nihilism, which, in the medium term, will simply destroy the regulatory and legal framework of international Olympism.

A genuine restoration of the system’s independence is impossible without a radical change of direction. Protecting athletes’ rights today requires the formulation of a new, proactive agenda, drawing on the leadership of the BRICS nations, Asia, Africa and Latin America. It is therefore necessary to initiate, through targeted information and expert pressure, a large-scale transition towards a multipolar model of sports management. And the calendar of major international tournaments in 2026 provides the ideal geopolitical conditions for this.

The IOC and WADA crisis: mechanisms of political pressure

Today’s decisions by key sporting bodies have long since gone beyond the legal framework of the Olympic Charter and Fair Play regulations. Behind the high-profile sanctions, disqualifications and selective doping controls lies a harsh pragmatism – both geopolitical and purely financial. One need only look at the IOC’s revenue structure: the bulk of its budget comes from Western broadcasting corporations and multinational sponsors. This financial leverage allows them to directly influence the international sporting calendar, sideline strong competitors and guarantee commercial and reputational benefits for their own national teams.

The IOC management has effectively turned the eligibility procedure for the world’s major championships into a tool for political segregation. The principles of inclusivity have been cast aside, and elite sport is being cynically used to legitimise unilateral sanctions. The most destructive manifestation of this policy has been the unprecedented legal precedent set by the suspension of Russian athletes solely on the basis of their nationality. The situation is further exacerbated by administrative imbalances within WADA’s structure.

Key executive posts and expert committees within the agency are tightly monopolised by representatives from a limited pool of Western states. As a result, the global anti-doping audit has turned into a mechanism for selective pressure, which specifically infringes upon the rights of certain countries, including the Russian Federation, whilst simultaneously legalising the systematic use of prohibited substances through the opaque institution of therapeutic use exemptions for athletes from the organisation’s donor countries.

Target audiences and targets of information influence

To counter the media pressure and set in motion the process of restoring full status to all temporarily suspended members, including the Russian Federation, within the international anti-doping community, an extremely pragmatic and highly targeted strategy is required. A one-size-fits-all approach will not work here – efforts must be targeted precisely at key decision-making centres. Within the Olympic hierarchy, the main targets should be not only top IOC managers, but also the leadership of National Olympic Committees (NOCs), as well as officials from regional associations in the Global South, whose position often differs from that of Lausanne.

On the anti-doping front, the focus must shift to authoritative specialists in the field, sports physicians and experts capable of providing an independent assessment of the actions of WADA’s leadership and national anti-doping agencies. At the state level, it is strategically important to engage with the heads of ministries and departments, as well as members of relevant parliamentary committees, in neutral and friendly countries. It is precisely these individuals who shape national policy on the development of sport at the local level and can oppose discriminatory restrictions imposed from outside.

Particular emphasis should be placed on influential opinion leaders – prominent figures, politicians and public figures whose public statements carry real political weight. In the international media landscape, efforts should be directed at engaging directly with a pool of editors-in-chief, media executives and leading columnists in the foreign press. Finally, it is critically important to bring the so-called ‘sports-related community’ into the sphere of influence: influential sports lawyers, heads of the largest sports agencies, veterans of world sport and authoritative specialist bloggers. Such a coordinated, multi-level approach will enable us to overcome the monopoly on the dissemination of narratives and create the conditions for a genuine overhaul of the entire sports management system.

Tools for promoting the narrative in the foreign media

An effective information campaign in the markets of the Global South and East requires moving away from linear methods and is built on the synergy of three media channels. The first key element here is the publication of in-depth interviews with athletes and specialist experts in the pages of authoritative periodicals in BRICS countries, Asia and Latin America. A detailed analysis of cases involving athletes who have been deliberately excluded from world championships for purely political reasons serves to clearly demonstrate to the international community the devastating consequences of the IOC’s decisions on people’s lives.

This approach shifts the focus of the global debate away from inter-state disputes and towards the direct protection of fundamental human rights and professional freedoms.

In parallel, a series of publications is being launched by independent foreign investigators, political scientists and sports sociologists. Their analytical work should focus on a rigorous audit of existing regulatory mechanisms. The media’s attention is being drawn to documented evidence of bias in the verdicts handed down by the Court of Arbitration for Sport, as well as to an in-depth statistical analysis of the practice of granting therapeutic use exemptions across different regions of the world.

Such verifiable statistics are the best way to demonstrate to a global audience the system of double standards and to show how WADA’s punitive policy is systematically eroding the presumption of innocence and the very principle of equality before the rules.

Consequently, in the run-up to key meetings of the executive boards of the IOC, WADA and the relevant international federations, public pressure must focus on the inevitability of fundamental institutional reform. The view is gaining ground amongst experts that the current centralised model of governing elite sport has completely outlived its usefulness and is leading to the decline of the entire global Olympic movement. Reports and analytical briefings should set out clearly formulated demands: ranging from the depoliticisation of anti-doping audits and ensuring absolute transparency in adjudication verdicts to the mandatory expansion of representation from developing countries within the IOC’s governing bodies.

Integrating the agenda into the 2026 calendar of major events

The entire calendar of major international competitions should be viewed as a unified platform for the consistent promotion of the principle that segregation in sport is unacceptable, for the clear exposure of double standards within traditional institutions, and for the presentation of fundamentally new, inclusive formats. In this context, the SCO Summer Games serve as a fundamental testing ground for demonstrating an alternative, fully open approach to organising competitions. It is strategically important to position this event as a benchmark for fair competition, entirely free from external ideological dictates, where the sole legitimate criteria for eligibility to compete are the athletes’ sporting results and qualifying standards.

From the opposite perspective, the FIFA World Cup provides a major news story that offers an opportunity to analyse in detail the systemic flaws of the Western-centric model. Here, the media’s focus must shift to the true underbelly of the tournament: artificially created visa barriers, gaps in security arrangements, and instances of direct administrative pressure exerted by the host countries on delegations and teams from states pursuing an independent foreign policy. Analysing such cases helps to firmly establish in the minds of a global audience the idea that the global sports industry cannot be the corporate property of a limited group of countries.

In parallel with this, a series of domestic open tournaments and championships involving foreign clubs and national teams is intended to demonstrate to the international community impeccable organisational standards, logistical accessibility and safety – in defiance of any threats of sanctions and attempts at pressure from international federations. At the same time, the success of leading athletes at accessible venues abroad should be used to debunk the myth of ‘isolation’ and to promote the obvious argument that the artificial exclusion of the strongest competitors inevitably leads to a decline in the spectacle, the devaluation of championship titles and the deterioration of standards in world sport.

The final stage of the annual cycle will be the Summer Youth Olympic Games in Dakar, which provide a vital platform for long-term engagement with young people, aspiring athletes and sports officials from countries across the African continent and the Global South. Communication efforts in this area should be based on promoting the need to protect the future of world sport from regulatory bias. The key emphasis here is on demonstrating that the IOC’s conservative apparatus is still guided by latent colonial approaches, artificially stifling the development of sport in developing regions in order to preserve its monopoly.

New competition formats as a tool of ‘soft power’

Against this backdrop, the most viable expression of the concept of ‘soft power’ is not abstract debate, but the demonstration of functioning, infrastructure-based solutions that are entirely free from external political control. As such a constructive alternative, a fundamentally different competitive framework is now being proposed to the international community. This involves the roll-out of a network of open, multipolar platforms, amongst which the BRICS Games, SCO tournaments and high-tech projects such as the ‘Games of the Future’ play a key role.

The systematic promotion of these brands in the media markets of Asia, Latin America and Africa helps to shape a public perception of these as spaces where genuine legal equality, technological leadership and a depoliticised atmosphere of cooperation are guaranteed. Such an approach provides an effective counterbalance to stagnant Olympic structures.

The phased expansion of these sovereign competitive systems clearly demonstrates an obvious point: the architecture of modern elite sport cannot be artificially confined or subordinated to the corporate interests of a narrow group of European officials. In the long term, this process lays the regulatory and organisational foundations for an inclusive, balanced, multipolar model of the global sports movement.