Introduction

Sports is a relevant subject for international relations (IR). Countless people around the world organize in sports clubs and associations or practice independently regardless of their specific circumstances. Cities bid for hosting sports events that many want to attend and watch. Companies place advertisements at these events and their broadcasts, politicians show up and pose with athletes. Supporters or athletes point out human rights violations or other grievances related to federations organizing or countries hosting an event, usually followed by officials of major sports federations claiming sports to be apolitical. These attempts, however, only increase the political character of sports and the necessity to study it.

Along these lines of the global relevance of sports and sports federations, the focus of this chapter is on how both the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and FIFA, the International Federation of Association Football (Fédération Internationale de Football Association), responded to Russia's invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022. Since 1896 and 1930 respectively, the IOC and FIFA have been holding tournaments that are now among the largest sports events in terms of participation and attention. Athletes representing countries from all continents take part in these events, while around 40 per cent of the world population are watching (Fett, 2020).

Interested in inter-organizational relations (IOR) and their contributions to world order, we study the IOC and FIFA through the lens of both an open system's perspective from organization studies (Scott, 1992 [1981]) and classical pragmatism (Peirce, 1998 [1903]; Dewey, 1991 [1927]). We ask how both organizations are embedded in their environments and what beliefs as rules for action they follow in the context of Russian aggression. We assume that the beliefs held by those who speak on behalf of the IOC and FIFA contribute to world order, understood as a specific constellation of beliefs on how human life is organized (Roos, 2015). These beliefs become manifest in practice, in what those who act in the name of states, intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) or non-governmental organizations (NGOs), such as the IOC, FIFA or other ‘structures of corporate practice’ do (Franke and Roos, 2010: 1065–9).