Zakharova called the election of the president of the table tennis Federation a disgrace

The election of the head of the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) in Qatar is an example of shameful politicization. This was announced on May 31 by the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova.

She said that during the elections, Swedish candidate Petra Serling, known for her position against the participation of Russian and Belarusian athletes in international competitions, became the head of the ITTF. At the same time, an alternative candidate was Qatari Khalil al-Mohannadi, president of the Asian Table Tennis Union, who proposed a program for the global development of this sport. The official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry called him a prominent representative of the sports movement.

According to Zakharova, the representative of Qatar received 98 votes, while Serling received 87. However, the situation became more complicated when it became clear that 17 more votes went to the Swede through remote voting. At the same time, as the federation itself admitted, only 16 delegations registered for remote voting — it is unclear where the additional vote came from. Moreover, it later became known that 21 countries voted in remote voting, which is a gross violation of established procedures.

"The Swede just lost the election, but she got her votes with some electronic ballots just to stay in the presidential chair. This egregious case, of course, will go down in the history of sports as another example of shameful politicization," Zakharova wrote on her Telegram channel.

Last August, the Russian Paralympic Committee (RPC) announced that two Russian athletes who planned to participate in the Paris Paralympic Games had been refused visas. The Russian sports organization stressed that such actions are unacceptable for a country that holds such major sporting events. Zakharova, in turn, called the refusal to issue visas to two Russian Paralympians cynicism.