As the Qatar World Cup nears, football can learn a lesson from tennis: turning down money will make your voice heardSport is politics. There is no question about that at the beginning of the year when the Winter Olympics are taking place in Beijing and the World Cup in Qatar. You only have to open the newspaper these days. The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, the Guardian, the Polish Gazeta Wyborcza and other quality media, which gather many voices to report on the world, deal on their sports pages with the diplomatic boycott of the Olympics by the USA, Great Britain and other countries, the “quiet diplomacy” of the International Olympic Committee and workers’ rights in Qatar.One news item received particular attention...
As an athlete who spoke up about abuse, I am tired of seeing reputation being prioritised over safetyWhen I first experienced abuse as an athlete, I made a vow to myself to never tell anyone. Ever. I was worried that I wouldn’t be believed, but also the thought that anyone would know me as a “victim” mortified me. On top of that, I knew that even if I told anyone, nothing would change. I was both right and wrong. Years later, after I stopped competing in figure skating, I broke my own silence on the physical abuse inflicted on me in China, and it freed me. I talked about it to my close friends, to reporters, and to my therapist...
With Peng still missing, this must be a watershed moment in how the sport deals with countries that deny human rightsHuang Xueqin was only ever trying to make her world a better place. Over the years she has become well known as a bold Chinese feminist activist and journalist who has aided survivors of sexual assault and wrote detailed accounts of her experiences during the Hong Kong protests. In September, a day before Huang was due to travel to London to study at the University of Sussex, she and the labour activist Wang Jianbing vanished. They have not been heard from since and are believed to have been detained by the Chinese authorities.This is a familiar fate for those deemed...