Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei told Iranian athletes that they must never compete against Israelis, even if they are disciplined by international bodies for it.
"Any Iranian athlete worthy of the name cannot shake hands with a representative of the criminal regime in order to win a medal," Khamenei told a group of Iranian Olympics and Paralympics athletes on Saturday.
“The genocidal, illegal Zionist regime attempts to gain some legitimacy by appearing in international athletic competitions. The world’s arrogant powers and their cohorts [the West] assist and support them in this,” he added.
He added they Iranian athletes must not even shake hands with Israelis.
As far as I know, this was never official policy for Iran beforehand, although athletes were broadly expected to withdraw from competing against Israelis using flimsy excuses.
Now that it is clearly official Iranian policy, it is time for all international sports federations to pro-actively ban Iranian athletes from all competitions unless Iran says explicitly that they will compete against Israelis. Khamenei has now made it crystal clear that he does not subscribe to the basic standards of international sport, and as such Iran should be disqualified from all competitions - today.
If international sports federations have any integrity whatsoever, they must act now, and not wait for any future competition.
