From Spain’s sports minister blasts ‘double standards,’ says Israel should be banned from events, like Russia
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BARCELONA, Spain — Spanish Sports Minister Pilar Alegria says that Israeli teams should be banned from sports in the same way that Russian sides broadly were in 2022 after the country’s invasion of Ukraine, highlighting a “double standard.”
The presence of a team named Israel-Premier Tech at the Vuelta a Espana cycling grand tour has led to huge protests in Spain, whose government has described Israel’s offensive in Gaza as “a genocide.”
Israel-Premier Tech is a private outfit owned by billionaire Israeli-Canadian property developer Sylvan Adams, not a state team, but it has been hailed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for refusing to quit the Vuelta despite vehement protests.
“It is difficult to explain and understand that there is a double standard,” Alegria tells Spanish radio station Cadena SER.
“Given that there has been such a massacre, a genocide, such an absolutely terrible situation we are living through day-by-day, I would agree that the international federations and committees should take the same decision as in 2022,” she adds.
“No team, no club from Russia participated in an international competition, and when the individuals participated, they did it under a neutral flag and without a national anthem.”
Alegria says she would like Vuelta organizers to block Israel-Premier Tech from competing, but accepted that such a decision could only be made by the cycling world governing body, UCI.
The Times of Israel Community.