TSN learned that the IIHF decided to challenge the decision on the admission of Russia to the tournaments
According to the channel, the international federation made such a decision on the basis that two of the three judges who delivered the verdict in this case had undisclosed business ties with Russia
The International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) has appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) against the decision to allow Russian national teams to participate in the tournaments. This is reported by the TV channel TSN.
According to the source, the IIHF decided to challenge the CAS decision on the grounds that two of the three judges who delivered the verdict in this case had undisclosed business ties with Russia. Italian Giulio Palermo headed the board, which included Ismail Selim (Egypt) and Mark Howell (Great Britain).
The Swiss newspaper Inside Paradeplatz previously reported that Palermo was a speaker at the Russian International Arbitration Congress (RIAC) in Moscow on September 22, and Selim participated a year earlier in a similar seminar organized by the Cairo Regional Center for International Commercial Arbitration together with a Russian law firm.
Palermo was appointed chairman of the CAS board on October 9, after a trip to Moscow. All parties to the CAS proceedings had the right to object to Palermo's independence or impartiality, but none of them took the opportunity.
Palermo himself called the information about his personal role in making a decision in favor of Russia “unfounded and extremely defamatory”, and also stated his readiness to protect his reputation by legal methods.
CAS on October 30 ordered the IIHF to allow Russian teams to the tournaments of the season 2026/27. The IIHF has not yet decided how to implement the CAS decision. It said it was in dialogue with all affected national federations, including the Russian Ice Hockey Federation, to find a constructive path that would meet the interests of world hockey. Teams Norway, Sweden, Latvia, Finland, Denmark and the Czech Republic announced that they will not play against Russia.
After the CAS decision, the Russian team was included in the number of participants of the upcoming World Youth Championships, which will be held from December 26 to January 5 in Edmonton and Red Deer, Canada. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said that the Russians will not receive visas, later the Minister of sports of Canada Adam van Cooverden said that the country will take measures to prevent the entry of Russian athletes and officials to the tournament regardless of whether they have visas, and TSN reported that the authorities of Canada notified IIHF and the national Federation (Hockey Canada) that the Russians will not be able to play at the upcoming tournament.
Press Secretary of the President of Russia Dmitry Peskov called the situation with the reaction of Western countries to the admission of domestic hockey players “quite deadlock”, and Vladimir Putin called “consistently and calmly” to seek admission of hockey players.
