The politicization of sports has led to the compelled speech characteristic of authoritarian regimes:

Daniil Medvedev, the Russian player currently sitting at No. 1 in the ATP rankings, may not be allowed to play at Wimbledon unless he denounces Russian president Vladimir Putin.

That was the situation outlined during a meeting at British Parliament on Tuesday, where sports minister Nigel Huddleston confirmed discussions were taking place to prevent supporters of Putin from entering the world’s oldest tennis tournament amid Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.

The word “unprovoked” is included lest the reader forget whose side to be on. The whole paper is the editorial page nowadays, including the sports section.

Bad enough Russian teams have already been forbidden to play in competitions, as if athletes were responsible for the policies of their governments. Forcing them to badmouth their own countries crosses the line from intolerance to tyranny.

After listing Russian athletes who dutifully denounced the invasion of Ukraine, the Yahoo! Sports source piece ends with this nugget of hypocrisy:

Few, if any, have directly criticized Putin by name, however, and you don’t need to be a geopolitical expert to understand why. Criticizing the autocrat, especially when his government has potential leverage over you, is dangerous business.

If Putin were as autocratic as the liberal establishment, he would compel tennis players to praise the invasion.

On a tip from Henry.