Insidethegames ‘banned’ from Summer Games

PARIS, France (AFP) — Olympics news website Insidethegames.biz, which was acquired by a Russian-run fund, said it has been effectively “banned” from the Paris Olympics after its accreditation requests were turned down.

The sports website, previously based in England and run by British sports journalist Duncan Mackay for 18 years until last October, was considered an influential source of news on the Olympic movement.

It was sold last October to new owners, Vox Europe Investment Holding, an investment fund with addresses in Britain and Hungary whose ultimate owners remain unknown.

“We feel like we are banned by the IOC (the International Olympic Committee),” chief operating officer for the site, Oleg Denisov, told AFP by telephone on Monday.

“We were thinking of sending four to five journalists with a photographer (to Paris 2024) because the Olympics is the main theme of Insidethegames,” Denisov added.

The IOC confirmed to AFP in an emailed statement that “they have not been allocated any accreditation” for the 26 July to 11 August Paris Games.

“We have nothing to add,” it continued.

Denisov said the website had not complied with an IOC request to identify the investors behind the Insidethegames takeover, which reportedly included Umar Kremlev, a Russian oligarch who is head of the International Boxing Association.

“There were only directors that were Russians. The owners I am not sure who they are,” added Denisov, who is also Russian.

When asked about Kremlev, he replied: “I believe this is speculation. I don’t know this information.”

The IOC has been in conflict with Moscow for many years over Russian state-backed doping and President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

The Russian team has been banned from Paris 2024, with only a handful of athletes being allowed to compete as neutrals.

Kremlev’s International Boxing Association was also expelled from the Olympic movement in 2023 because of concerns about its “integrity and transparency.”