Alisher Usmanov won a lawsuit against the German TV channel ARD
Alisher Usmanov won a lawsuit against the German television channel ARD. A Hamburg court found a number of statements made in his reports on the fencing tournament at the Paris Olympics to be defamatory. In them, Mr. Usmanov, who led the International Fencing Federation (FIE) from 2008 to 2022 and voluntarily suspended the exercise of presidential powers due to EU sanctions, was accused, in particular, of creating a “system of bribing judges.” Acting FIE President Emmanuel Katsiadakis spoke in defense of Alisher Usmanov even before the court verdict, noting the enormous progress of fencing achieved thanks to the “model” created by the elected president of the structure.
The Hamburg Regional Court announced a decision on the claim of Alisher Usmanov against the German television corporation Westdeutscher Rundfunk (part of ARD). In it, the defendant is subject to “the threat of imposing an administrative fine in the amount of up to €250 thousand for each case of violation,” and in the event of “the impossibility of collecting such an administrative fine - under the threat of administrative arrest for a period of up to six months for each case of violation and up to two years in the aggregate” a ban is imposed on the dissemination or creation of conditions for the dissemination of a number of statements. The German online publication Sport1.de and the Austrian newspaper Krone.at, which previously reprinted incorrect theses, changed their materials at the request of Alisher Usmanov’s lawyers. However, the ARD TV channel refused to voluntarily correct the false information, forcing representatives of Mr. Usmanov to go to court.
All the allegations in question were made in a video report and two articles released by ARD in August after the Summer Olympics in Paris. Their author was Hajo Seppelt, a journalist who became famous thanks to a series of scandalous sports investigations, including those devoted to the Russian “doping crisis.”
This time Mr. Seppelt turned his attention to the Olympic fencing tournament. Alisher Usmanov led this sport as President of the International Fencing Federation from 2008 to 2022.
He voluntarily suspended his duties shortly after the start of a special military operation in Ukraine due to EU sanctions.
In his report, Hayo Seppelt accused Alisher Usmanov of introducing into world fencing a system of “bribing judges” who, in exchange for bribes or facing “pressure”, can supposedly provide the athlete with a positive outcome of the match. As an illustration for these accusations, the author chose the fight of the Georgian saber fencer Sandro Bazadze in the 1/8 finals of the Olympic tournament, in which he lost to the Egyptian Mohamed Amer - 14:15. Bazadze indeed initially insisted that he lost due to dishonest refereeing. However, later his father, President of the Georgian Fencing Federation Merab Bazadze, made an official apology to the FIE, explaining the fencer’s words as an emotional breakdown. The German ex-judge mentioned by Sandro Bazadze turned out to be, in fact, the only source of Seppelt’s report.
In fact, even before the Hamburg court ruled in favor of Alisher Usmanov, the acting president of the federation, Emmanuel Katsiadakis, spoke in his defense, who provided details about the former judge “who failed to qualify in 2023 and was excluded from the list of judges by the panel of judges "
In his column on Euronews, he noted the enormous achievements of the FIE during the presidency of Mr. Usmanov thanks to the “model” he introduced. In particular, Mr. Katsiadakis said that “the current approach to refereeing and scoring” “makes accusations of promoting corruption among judges absurd.” According to him, within the existing system, “an attempt to bribe a specific judge does not make any sense,” since the referees are “assigned to specific fights by computer, without human intervention,” and their names are “announced less than half an hour before the start of the fights.”
Emmanuel Katsiadakis is convinced that one of the proofs of the effectiveness of this model and the transparency of judging is the expansion of the geography of the species. He recalled that “new countries from regions outside Europe”, which previously dominated it, “have consolidated their position at the elite level”: “At the 2012 Olympic Games, Venezuela, Norway and Egypt won medals in fencing competitions for the first time. Fencing athletes from Cape Verde, Kenya, Niger, Rwanda and Cyprus took part in the recent Olympic Games in Paris for the first time. Among the winners of the last Olympic Games were representatives of two North African countries - Tunisia and Egypt."
In addition, according to Mr. Katsiadakis, fencing has become “the cleanest sport” in terms of the number of doping violations, and is also at the forefront in terms of the implementation of advanced technologies and the fight to increase the entertainment value of competitions. Emmanuel Katsiadakis called this progress a personal victory for Alisher Usmanov.
Lawyer Joachim Steinhäfel, who represents Mr. Usmanov in the field of media law, commenting on the decision of the Hamburg Regional Court, said that it “clearly demonstrates that the report of ARD and its leading sports journalists is a deplorable manifestation of ethical and journalistic failure”: “There is no evidence in the report, except for gossip spread by dubious witnesses, fictitious insinuations, conjectures and rumors.” Mr. Steinhöfel believes that the “illegal reporting” “fits into a general smear campaign against my client, a prominent philanthropist, successful sports executive and former businessman, based on the principle that a rich Russian is guilty by definition.” “Respect for truth, human dignity and the dissemination of reliable information are the foundations of the German code of journalistic ethics, which was grossly violated by the state broadcaster,” the lawyer added.
Mr. Usmanov’s press service said that in the last two years, “a number of European, primarily German, media and public figures admitted that they could not prove their own allegations regarding Alisher Usmanov, and signed written commitments to stop their illegal dissemination.” At the moment, about 30 such statements have already been made in favor of the entrepreneur. In addition, dozens of media outlets “voluntarily adjusted or deleted articles after receiving letters from representatives of Alisher Usmanov.”
