Chris Andrews (Dublin Bay South, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to speak on the situation in Ukraine. I send my continued solidarity to the people of Ukraine. The resilience and courage they have shown is inspiring. Every day they are enduring the brutal and deadly reality of Russian aggression.

It has been uplifting to see the rapid response, from here and from the rest of Europe, and the opening of doors to give shelter and support to those fleeing this war of aggression. A notable player in this regard has been the Red Cross. It has been doing amazing work and it is important to acknowledge that.

Rarely have we seen sporting organisations take a stand in wars. This has changed in the context of Ukraine and Russia, but this change must be applied equally. We saw the decisive pressure applied to Roman Abramovich that pushed him to begin the process of selling Chelsea Football Club. We have also seen powerful acts of solidarity with Ukraine by sports fans in stands right across the world. What worries me now is the lack of continuity from the sporting community. It feels selective in what wars it opposes. Newcastle United Football Club is now effectively owned by the Saudi Arabian government. Last Sunday, the second round of the Formula One championship was hosted there. This is the Saudis whitewashing their terror. Saudi Arabia is waging a brutal and illegal war on the people of Yemen, where nearly 400,000 women, children and men have died. Only last year, an Algerian athlete, Fethi Nourine, and his coach were banned from competing for ten years for refusing to compete against an athlete from apartheid Israel. How can anyone justify that ten-year ban? Drug cheats in sports have got significantly shorter bans of a few months or years. Where is the consistency?

It seems that the world's sporting federations view some wars as brutal and oppressive and others as none of their business. Waving a Palestinian flag at a UEFA match will result in a club being fined, but it is okay, rightly, for fans to wave a Ukrainian flag. This is the sort of inconsistency our international sports bodies need to address. Sporting bodies have played an important role in standing up to the Russian aggression, but we cannot have an à la carteapproach to wars. We cannot have one terror state being allowed to sportswash while another faces sanctions. We must put an end to sportswashing by all terror states.

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