World Sailing must make sure this discrimination never happens again

by Rob Kothe & the Sail-World Team on 25 Dec 2015 World Sailing must make sure that such shameful behaviour can never happen again.

Israel’s Yoav Omer and Noy Drihan will not have an opportunity to defend their titles at the Youth Sailing World Championships, which get underway in Langkawi, Malaysia on Sunday, after the Israel Sailing Association (ISA) announced on Wednesday that it will not be sending a team due to the demands made by the organizers and the fact the surfers have yet to receive visas.

The ISA notified the International Sailing Federation (ISAF), the International Olympic Committee and the hosts on Wednesday that Israel will not be taking part as the organizers demanded that the surfers would not compete under the Israel flag and wouldn't be allowed to use any symbol identifiable with Israel on their clothes or surfboards.

The hosts also said that should an Israeli win a gold medal the Israeli national anthem would not be played.

'As we have yet to receive visas, 24 hours before our scheduled departure date, and considering the restrictions and difficulties the organizing committee has placed on us, we have decided not to take part in the competition,' said ISA chairman Gili Amir.

'The Malaysians' demands are unacceptable, and as we haven't received the visas, we decided not to participate. We condemn the unsporting conduct of the organizing committee. We will not agree to be humiliated and we are considering filing a lawsuit against the ISAF and the host country in coordination with the Olympic Committee of Israel.'

Omer claimed the gold medal in the boys Under-19 competition in the previous championships in Gdynia, Poland last year, while Drihan won the girls U17 and U19 events.

Learning from this disgraceful occurrence, World Sailing must add to its contracts a severe monetary penalty, of say US$500,000 to events that discriminate against countries in this manner. If events bid for World Sailing championships, without written assurances from their national governments that Visas will be issued to all potential country participants then they should incur that penalty.

If that means that countries like Malaysia do not bid for World Sailing events, tough!!

We are asking the Executive of World Sailing for a reaction to this action by Malaysia and their plans to prevent this kind of behaviour from any future event.

For the full media report click here