
A week after the All England Club discriminated against a group of tennis players based on their country of origin, officials are still struggling to explain their “complex” decision.
After years of being told by the elites that to discriminate by race, color, creed, vaxx-status, or sexual identity, some have questioned the discrimination as ‘discriminatory’.
But no need to worry because the All England Lawn Tennis Club (AELTC) chairman Ian Hewitt explained in an interview yesterday that “it is not discrimination in the form that is being said.”
Got that? ‘This is not the discrimination you are looking for’.
Hewitt’s word-salad of utter gaslighting guff got worse as he tied himself in knots of hypocrisy:
“We believe that we have taken the right decision, which is the proper decision for Wimbledon in the whole circumstances, and I don’t think I want to speculate on particular courses of action or the like.”
As part of a prepared statement, Hewitt said the AELTC believes “this is an extreme and exceptional situation that takes us far beyond the interests of tennis alone” while noting that “government, industry, sport and creative institutions are all playing their part in efforts to limit Russia’s global influence including any benefit from trade, cultural or sporting shows of strength”.
Apparently, allowing Russians to play would have put non-Russian players in danger, and handed Putin an opportunity to gloat about how great his tennis-playing-citizens are (something we are sure he was hoping for)…
“First, even if we were to accept entries from Russian and Belarusian players with written declarations,” as suggested by UK Sports Minister Nigel Huddleston, “we would risk their success or participation at Wimbledon being used to benefit the propaganda machine of the Russian regime – which we could not accept,” Hewitt said.
“Second, we have a duty to ensure that no actions we take should put the safety or welfare of players, or their families, at risk.”
Hewitt concluded by ‘understanding’ how the player community could be affected and saying that AELTC “hopes that in time they can understand our desire to achieve a safe and responsible outcome.”
On a side note, AELTC announced that all COVID restrictions will be lifted at the competition, so Djokovic can play (but obviously he won’t be battling Medvedev).
Watch the full statement below…