Vladimir Lisin lost in a shootout – Newspaper Kommersant No. 223 (7424) of 12/01/2022

Russian businessman Vladimir Lisin resigned as president of the International Sports Shooting Federation (ISSF), the portal reports. Insidethegames. According to the results of the election of the head of the federation held in Egypt on Wednesday, Mr. Lisin lost to his longtime rival, Italian Luciano Rossi. Probably, the moods of a number of delegates of the ISSF General Assembly were influenced by the events in Ukraine. Back in June, representatives of a number of Western countries called on Vladimir Lisin to resign.

On Wednesday in Sharm el-Sheikh (Egypt) the general assembly of the International Shooting Sport Federation was held. The key issue on the agenda was the election of the president of the organization. The acting president, the main shareholder of NLMK, Vladimir Lisin, and the president of the Italian Shooting Federation, Luciano Rossi, claimed the role of head of the ISSF. Four years ago, Lisin and Rossi also competed for the presidency. Then the Russian businessman won, but with a very small, only four votes (148:144), advantage. We also note that the 2018 elections turned out to be scandalous. To participate in them, Mr. Rossi had to apply to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) with a claim to overturn a three-year suspension imposed on him by the ISSF Ethics Committee for violations related, in particular, to “conflict of interest” and “undermining the integrity of the organization”. CAS then sided with him, believing that the sanctions were imposed “for political and personal reasons”, and reduced the suspension to 20 weeks. Luciano Rossi later tried to take over as president of the European Shooting Confederation (ESC). But even there he lost to the Russian Alexander Ratner, who is also the Secretary General of the ISSF.

The 2022 election campaign did without any disqualifications, but the election still had a scandalous connotation. Back in the summer, representatives of a number of Western countries that are members of the ISSF, such as the USA, Canada, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Norway, Slovenia, Sweden, turned with an open letter to ISSF. Its signatories believed that after the start of events in Ukraine, Vladimir Lisin should have resigned.

Well, Luciano Rossi built his campaign on accusations of Mr. Lisin of authoritarianism, constant reminders of his connections with the Russian power structures and, of course, on his own promises to do everything democratically and transparently.

It is difficult to say how strongly the delegates of the General Assembly were impressed by the program of Mr. Rossi, and not by the political agenda. For example, Alexander Ratner, in an open letter published last week, questioned the promises of the Italian, noting that in no protocol of the ISSF executive committee meeting for 20 years (Luciano Rossi served as ISSF vice president from 1998 to 2018) there is no mention of that he put forward proposals for the modernization and optimization of competitions. “He also did not say a single word about the transparency of management and financial policy during this time. Did not bring a single sponsor,” said Mr. Ratner.

However, the general assembly decided that the ISSF would be better off with a new president. 136 votes were cast for Luciano Rossi, 127 for Vladimir Lisin. Soon Alexander Ratner also lost his post as ISSF Secretary General. He, like Mr. Lisin, did not wait for the completion of the work of the assembly and left it. His place was taken by a member of the ISSF technical commission, German Willy Grill, as he himself told Insidethegames.

The departure of Vladimir Lisin from the ISSF means that Russia no longer effectively has its own representatives in the presidency of the international federations represented at the Olympics.

Back in the spring, Alisher Usmanov, who headed the International Fencing Federation (FIE), temporarily folded powers. There is also the International Boxing Association (IBA), whose president is Umar Kremlev. However, the IBA, by decision of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) suspended from participating in the 2024 Games in Paris (the boxing tournament, like in Tokyo 2020, will be held by the IOC itself).

Alexander Petrov