World Cup
Russia’s World Cup blues are only to be expected While the US may only be a bystander at one of the world’s biggest sporting events, it will not sit on the sidelines if a number of other issues arise M. K. Bhadrakumar May 31, 2018 Sporting events are great occasions to project “soft power.” Adolf Hitler hosted the Berlin Olympics in 1936 to project the image of a peace-loving, benign Germany. The western world had no qualms about participating in that event. But when it comes to Russia, the legacy of the two events it hosted were mired in political controversy – the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow and the 1994 [2014] Winter Olympics in Sochi. In 1980, the western world led by the United States boycotted the event, protesting against the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan. And in 1994 [2014], the West stole the thunder from the Sochi Winter Olympics after the regime change in Ukraine that caught Russia hopelessly flat-footed, leading to cascading US and EU sanctions. But Vladimir Putin is a self-confessed sports nut and Russia finds itself hosting the most glamorous sporting event of the world – the FIFA World Cup 2018 from June 14 to July 15. Moscow must be heaving a sigh of relief that there is no western boycott of the event and three European teams are actually the favorites to...
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