Does the IOC Bear Any Responsibility – Direct or Indirect – for the Ukraine Crisis? Crisis Management Expert Steven Fink Asks
Los Angeles (PRWEB) April 29, 2014 -- The International Olympic Committee has now closed the door for any future bids to host the 2022 Winter Olympic Games, and five cities are in contention as possible nation hosts. But at least three of them are potential ticking time bombs, and Steven Fink, an international crisis management expert, says the IOC should for once do what’s in the best interests of the world at large and reject any totalitarian or repressive country seeking to play host. He maintains in a new article just posted to TheCrisisBlog.tumblr.com and the CrisisManagement.com website, that history and current events suggest the IOC may indirectly provide the impetus for geopolitical upheaval.
“There is such a cachet to hosting the Olympic Games, that the afterglow seems to settle like an aura of respectability and legitimacy over the host country,” he writes. “Host countries – democracies as well as totalitarian regimes – are on their best behavior for months leading up to the games and, of course, during the games themselves. Basking in the communal pool of high praise for a job well done, repressive regimes liberally interpret such applause as a mantle of legitimacyand carte blanche to do as they please.”
As a current event example, he points out that “No sooner had the athletes and spectators departed that Russian president Vladimir Putin annexed Crimea, which precipitated the crisis in the Ukraine.”
And his article offers advice for the IOC in selecting the next host city up for grabs in 2022.
Ironically, one of the five cities that submitted a bid to host the games in 2022 was Lviv, a city in turmoil-inflicted Ukraine. The bid was started long before the current crisis began.
Part of Fink’s advice to the IOC: Choose wisely. Lives could be at stake.
Steven Fink, President and CEO of Lexicon Communications Corp. can be reached at sfink(at)lexiconcorp.(dot)com, or 626-683-9333.
Steven Fink, Lexicon Communications, http://CrisisManagement.com, +1 626-683-9333, [email protected]
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