February 20, 2022: The Beijing Winter Olympics conclude, and the turnaround period for the Winter Paralympics begins.February 24, 2022: Russia launches a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, starting a war now entering its fifth year.February 25, 2022: The International Olympic Committee sanctions Russia, urging international sports federations to relocate or cancel events in the country and accusing Moscow of breaching the ‘Olympic Truce’. Russian athletes are barred from competing under the national flag.February 28, 2022: FIFA expels Russia from the 2022 World Cup and bars the country’s teams — national and club — from international competition, a ban that remains in force till today.*********************************************Sequence 2:February 22, 2026: The Milano-Cortina Winter Olympics end, beginning the transition period before the Winter Paralympics.February 28, 2026: The US and Israel launch coordinated air strikes on Iran.Story continues below this adMarch 3, 2026: In a statement, the IOC does not mention the US or Israel. It describes the Olympic Truce — cited in banning Russia — as an ‘aspirational and non-binding resolution’ that it has no means of enforcing.FIFA is yet to issue an official statement. Secretary general Mattias Grafstrom says the organisation is ‘monitoring the situation’.Two wars, two strikingly similar timelines. In one case, world sport moved swiftly to sanction Russia. Four years later, the same organisations are taking a far more cautious approach to the US-Israel attacks on Iran.The reasons are simple: power and money.Simon Chadwick, Professor of Afro-Eurasian Sport at the Emlyon Business School, says the USA accounts for “one third of the global sport industry”.Story continues below this ad“It is the source of investment funds; for a sport to truly go global then it ideally needs to engage American audiences; and many of the latest developments in world sport originate there. Boycotting, excluding and banning countries from global (sport) is an outcome of power, which the United States has in abundance,” Chadwick told The Indian Express.American networks and sponsors pour in billions of dollars into the IOC coffers, which keep the ecosystem rolling. This year’s World Cup is projected to generate approximately $10.9 billion in revenue, up 56 per cent compared with Qatar 2022.‘Power rests with the West’While banning Russia, the IOC invoked the Olympic truce. The Olympic Truce is a United Nations resolution calling for global peace from seven days before the Olympic opening ceremony until seven days after the Paralympics close. The aim is to promote peace and ensure safe travel for athletes.This year’s Olympic Truce runs up to March 22. So, when the USA-Israel airstrikes on Iran began, it officially violated the truce.Story continues below this adThe IOC, which came hard on Russia for the same violation, said last week: “The Olympic Truce Resolution is an aspirational and non-binding resolution which the UN Member States agree on for each edition of the Olympic and Paralympic Games. It is tabled by the host nation of the Games and is adopted by the UN Member States themselves. The IOC, with its Permanent Observer Status at the UN, has no means of enforcing the implementation of the resolution.”Also Read | Russia’s push to end 10-year international athletics exileChadwick adds that sports ‘governing bodies are increasingly faced with having to make decisions they previously didn’t have to’. “Such is their lack of expertise in this field that many of them are prone to making inconsistent, even ill-informed, decisions,” he adds. “It doesn’t help that elite sport’s global hegemony is still essentially ‘Western’; this is where wider power rests and the basis upon which sport governing bodies typically make decisions.”Trump statementOn Thursday, US President Donald Trump — the recipient of the first-ever FIFA Peace Prize — said it wouldn’t be “appropriate that they (Iran) be there (for the World Cup), for their own life and safety”. In saying so, Trump might be testing the Olympic charter.The US will be hosting the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles. The Games will be in the final few months of the Trump presidency, which has already imposed visa sanctions on more than a dozen countries.Story continues below this adRule 44 of the Olympic Charter – to which all Olympic sports are signatories – states: “…ensure that no one has been excluded for racial, religious or political reasons or by reason of other forms of discrimination.”In February 2019, the IOC had sanctioned India for violating this very rule. A couple of years ago, FIFA stripped Indonesia of the hosting rights to the Under-20 World Cup after the country refused to host Israel.The USA, though, might not face the same fate. Who has the power and the inclination to mount a challenge?” Chadwick asks. “Unless there is a coalition of countries working in conjunction with each other, I don’t foresee the US or Israel being excluded from international sports organisations or events anytime soon.”