The flag dispute continues to preoccupy the ice hockey world championship in Latvia.
Franz Reindl, the President of the German Ice Hockey Federation (DEB), said on Thursday morning that he did not understand the exchange of flags in Riga in protest against the Belarusian ruler Alexandr Lukashenko.
Marc Heinrich
Sports editor.
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At his behest, a passenger plane was forced to land on Sunday in order to arrest the blogger Roman Protassewitsch, who is critical of the government, and his girlfriend. "I don't think that's okay because the World Cup should basically have nothing to do with the general political weather situation," Reindl said at a DEB press conference. The players from Belarus were "ultimately the ones who suffered".
Riga's mayor Martins Stakis had the state flags of Belarus replaced by the red and white flags of the opposition in several city squares. The Lukashenko regime reacted indignantly to the action and expelled all Latvian diplomats. In addition, the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF), whose future President Reindl is acting, had ordered that the World Cup flag and the flag with the logo of the world association should be brought in at the appropriate places, because the association is an "apolitical sports organization" according to its statutes. be.
Stakis commented on the IIHF's allegations on Twitter, among other things: “We have to choose - a people who push for freedom or a dictator. We continue by hanging the IIHF flag. ”Reindl followed the line of the world association in his argumentation:“ Belarus is a team like any other at the World Cup. And they play for their country. I don't think they're playing for one person. ”Originally Belarus and Latvia were supposed to host the World Cup together, which the IIHF wanted to hold on to despite all the repression. But with the threat of not sponsoring the tournament, the sponsors Nivea, Skoda and Liqui Moly forced the IIHF to withdraw it from Belarus.