One of the few constants of the global game during the duration of the COVID-19 pandemic was football matches in the Vysheyshaya League in Belarus, as I reported in previous articles for Forbes. Now the game is suspended. The matches were postponed since 8 August. Athletes who played the pandemic are now in criminals. Many foreign athletes oppose the violence that has spread through Belarus since the presidential election on Sunday 9, when outgoing President Alexander G. Lukashenko won nearly 80% of the votes cast. Some athletes are still in criminal situation at the time of writing this article.
Lukashenko trusted the game to inject budget into Belarus when the Covid-19 league was closed, and although this is in direct contact with the Recommendation of the World Health Organization, it would still have been temporarily effective. Now the bese president is struggling to retain power, while public anger over his regime’s handling of Covid-19 fuels anger. I asked 3 experts how Belarus will respond to foreign sanctions and how the broader ones will affect business, generation and gaming industry, as the latest European dictatorship fights for the next steps.
Lukashenko’s denial of the risk posed through Covid-19 has led Belarusian sports to expand significantly, with many broadcasters such as MyCujoo signing rights agreements to broadcast championship matches to audiences around the world.
Belarus already had a very strong generation sector, creating close links with the gaming and e-sports technologies used in the sports betting industry. Local corporations that have nothing to do with the Belarusian president have left a strong impression on global corporations, who recognize that assignments such as the Belarusian high-tech park are an invaluable partner. Companies founded in Belarus’s so-called Silicon Valley have created gambling, gambling and sports betting software, covering CoolGoal! Tank world. The Belarusian football team is so interested in the latter that it has visited the generation park to practice the progression process. However, as the owner of the transfer is the opposition testaferro Valery Tsepkalo, who was forced to flee Belarus after making his candidacy to oppose President Lukashenko, it is not yet known how foreign corporations will understand the long term of the incubator.
Talking about Belarus adapting to the next European Ukraine may be sensationalist, but it is transparent that Russia’s intervention poses a new industry dilemma. State news firm Belta and the Financial Times report that Lukashenko won concrete promises of “comprehensive security assistance” from Russian President Vladimir V. Putin’s calls on Saturday 15.
So when 250,000 protesters were seen descending on the capital, Minsk, on Sunday 16, what has been dubbed the “largest collection in the country’s history,” coupled with the news that the European Union has already reached an initial agreement on the new sanctions. which adds new considerations to the country’s booming sports generation sector. I arrange as the fact that some of Belarus’s best-known sports stars are also detained.
Footballers such as FC BATE Borisov’s Anton Soroca have already been arrested at demonstrations. The striker, who also plays for the Belarusian national team, was detained for seven days. The club’s general manager, Mikhail Zaleuski, used Instagram to express his displeasure. “There are no [enough] tears, look at the arbitrariness of the batons and the anarchy of force [used in opposition to the protesters]. I’m a former officer and now I’m embarrassed to the brim,” Zaleuski said, in a hard post showing the football executive first dropping his hat and then his old police uniform in a dumpster. “Please STOP for peace. Don’t you feel sorry for women or children?” Begged. Football matches have been postponed since day 8, but countless athletes have also been arrested. Ice hockey star Ilya Litvinov, who plays for Dinamo Molodechno, was also arrested and released in less than a day. Photos of the star’s severely bruised face have spread on social media.
Meanwhile, boxer Denis Goncharenok went to social media to call for the release of his friend, combined martial arts legend Alexey Kudin. Kudin is a highly skilled fighter, whose staying power in the European MMA is remarkable. However, despite the fact that he won countless gold and silver medals in performances at some of Europe’s most prestigious championships, grounded reports of torture and attack in police custody have led boxer Goncharenok to pray for his friend’s release.
Belarus has developed a forged reputation for e-sports, where players have also been affected. As sports journalist Artyom Rashchupkin said in his article to Championat.com:
“E-sports hounds have always tried to stay out of politics, but when a local e-sports player is sent to the criminal isolation center, it is no longer imaginable to remain silent. Belarusian player Oleg ‘LastHero’ Demidovich discovered himself at the center of this political chaos. Teammate Dmitry Fishman Polishchuk was the first to report his arrest on 12 August.”
Esports is not only upset that Demidovich was forced to kneel for six hours when police allegedly beat him, as esports.com confirms. The industry, says Rashchupkin, also relies on the Internet, which has almost completely closed in recent weeks of protests. The mix of these two points led the Belarusian Cybersport Association to condemn the government and express solidarity with the protesters. Writing in Vkontakte, Denis Rogush explained the association’s decision:
“In recent days, the stage in Belarus has reached its limit. Thousands of people have been further affected, even more so, by fear of uncertainty about their future. We are incredibly involved about what is happening in our country, explicit ours to all Belarusians and temporarily suspend our network publications as a sign of solidarity.”
William F. Browder is co-founder and CEO of Hermitage Capital Management, once the Russian hedge fund and the world’s best-performing fund.
World. The U.S.-born financier devoted himself to defending human rights after his friend and auditor, Sergei L. Magnitsky, died in custody. Magnitsky’s arrest took place when he exposed a massive conspiracy of VAT fraud, involving several politically exposed Americans and corrupt officials. Browder’s retaliation was astonishing. The financier designed the Magnitsky Act, which was passed via Congress with bipartisan consensus in 2012, and is now one of the most feared legislation that borders foreigners. The most highly productive international human rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson describes the law as “a way to attack Auschwitz exercise drivers, apparatchiks and other people who make some money from human rights violations and sometimes stay off the radar.” The Magnitsky Act affects businesses, large and small. Browder’s position is that the corruption of any business, whether through mass bribes or small facilitation bills, is corruption that will have to be punished because it violates the rights of others.
“At this point, anyone who does business with Belarus deserves to be cautious. Any giant corporation in the country, by definition, will have close ties to the Lukashenko regime, and deep sanctions can be expected. For a Western corporation, it will be around them. sanctions, Bill told me. He also renewed his calls for sanctions under the Magnitsky Act in opposition to Belarus. done without delay against Lukashenko and his deputies. “In addition to the reputation threat of companies doing business in Belarus or with, Bill also highlighted the genuine economic effect.” At this point, any Western company doing business in Belarus may be stuck in a terrible line of sanctions.”
Dominik Istrate is a foreign policy analyst at the Hungarian tank Political Capital, a Budapest-based institute that offers independent policy research.
consulting and business analysis facilities in Central and Eastern Europe. Istrate told me that even if the occasions in Minsk were to intensify, sanctions imposed are unlikely to be far beyond the objective of “Belarusian officials, who have been directly interested in falsifying electoral effects and post-election repression, with prohibitions and asset freezes.” “.
“The imposition of economic sanctions opposed to Belarus, be they export restrictions, a ban on the acquisition of newly issued government bonds or sanctions opposed to the monetary sector, remains unlikely because the country’s economy is already on a downward trajectory due to the Covid-19 crisis,” Istrate said. “The pressure of sanctions on the economy would push Lukashenko’s regime further into the hands of the Kremlin. This is something the EU obviously needs to avoid. In any case, the charge to companies, whether local or foreign joint ventures, is significant.
Istrate referred to the Belarusian “Silicon Valley,” the Belarusian high-tech park, which was once the largest generation incubator in Eastern Europe and still hosts another 30,000 qualified people with corporations interested in many facets of the sports betting, gaming and online streaming industry. . The assignment now faces serious obstacles, with one of its founders, Valery Tsepkalo, making an attempt to run against Lukashenko. The long term of the generational park is doubtful as Tsepkalo has fled the country.
“Nearly three hundred Belarusian IT companies and their investors have threatened to withdraw their companies from the country if new (and transparent) elections are not held. This is a very worrying sign of Belarus, although it still works with a Soviet-type state, has built a remarkable IT industry. The sector accounted for 5.5% of the country’s GDP in 2018 and the Belarusian government was doubling that percentage over the next 3 years. The country has earned a reputation abroad thanks to generation staff and this is the explanation for why these Belarusian IT specialists can look for new jobs abroad if their calls for democracy and freedom are not fulfilled.”
Demonstrate that if the replacement of the regime can lead to genuine human suffering, as protests would already imply, long-term economic effects can give hope.
“If Lukashenko falls, the chances of converting Belarus’s Soviet-style economic formula will outweigh ever. The economy has largely stagnated since 2012 and reforms, namely the modernization of state-owned enterprises and large-scale privatization. Belarus wants new resources for economic growth, and leaders of the democratic opposition are very aware (and support) these facts. These privatization efforts will certainly raise doubts about the corruption considerations of Belarusian society, and Russian oligarchs are already contemplating this opportunity,” Istrate said. “If there is a new president, and then a new government, the leader will have to be artistic and put into force a socially appropriate and economically viable solution for Belarus.”
Craig Turp is editor-in-chief of Emerging Europe, an expert group that publishes high-quality research and news about business in Central and Eastern Europe, with a strong focus on foreign business readers interested in regional companies. Emerging Europe has already reported on sports betting during the Covid-19 pandemic in Belarus, while the site offers some of the most productive research on the generation sector. Turp also does not know to what extent foreign measures will affect companies in real time. “The kind of sanctions that are being discussed lately is limited to non-public measures that oppose Alexander Lukashenko and members of his entourage. They are unlikely to have a direct effect on the country’s overall economy,” Turp tells me.
Entrepreneurs and business leaders are more involved with the risk that skills will leave the country if the existing regime manages to sustain itself. Investors will also be much less likely to inject cash into what will in fact be an out-of-law state. Local advisers are highly unlikely to present the country as worthy of attention. “Given the rise of financial technology, electronic games, and the major generation facilities on which we rely more than ever to sustain the pandemic, sanctions can seriously damage the sector.
“Belarus will be cut off from Western markets and will head towards Russia, whose own economic crisis makes it incapable and refuses to fill the void,” Turp added.
With the evolution of news and protests, updates to this article can take position in a timely manner. All commercial customers of Belarusian companies would be very useful.
I am an award-winning journalist, editor and director of television, who has written articles, analyses, reviews and essays for more than 30 newspapers and magazines. Select titles
I am an award-winning journalist, editor and director of television, who has written articles, analyses, reviews and essays for more than 30 newspapers and magazines. Some titles include Esquire, GQ, Men’s Health, Newsweek, The Financial Times, The Spectator and The Wall Street Journal. I began my career by reporting on society, literature and the history of the Russian Federation; However, I am now writing analysis of the close bonds that successful athletes have in the region with business, politics, philanthropy and the arts. . I had the chance to surf in the Arctic Circle desert of Russia, report on the last UCI accredited cycling race in Ukraine in 2015 and attend classic wrestling tournaments with Moldovan politicians. When I’m not dating retired American MMA stars who earn mega dollars in Moscow, or when I’m not talking to the economic and political elite of the former Soviet Union, who started their careers in the professional game, I like to walk down the Kamchatka Peninsula. My greatest regret is that I couldn’t see surfing in the city of Atyrau, Kazakhstan. In addition to my interest in this region expresses, I write about a variety of general game topics in Forbes.com. Follow me on Twitter or send me a DM via @williampnicoll.