French Minister of Sports Amélie Oudéa-Castera on Wednesday criticized Novak Djokovic’s political message for a Serbian Kosovo after their victory in the first round of Roland Garros and said that “there is no need to repeat”.
“This is clearly inappropriate.“, declared Oudéa-Castéra in an interview with the French public channel France 2 when asked about the action of the Serbian athlete, who on Monday at the end of his qualifying match for the tournament in Paris wrote to a broadcast camera in cyrillic: “Kosovo is the heart of Serbia. stop the violence“.
The French minister explained that the director of the tournament, Amélie Mauresmo, spoke to the entourage of the player, who in the past has publicly expressed his political position regarding Kosovo, and insisted that “it is not necessary repeat because there is a principle. of neutrality” in competition.
In his opinion, Djokovic’s action was “militant” and “very political”, and for this reason it should not show itself during the competition.
The situation in Kosovo has returned to the present in recent days due to a sharp increase in tension between the authorities of the Albanian majority and the Serb minority, supported by Belgrade, over the election of the mayors of the four northern municipalities.
In these municipalities, where Serbs are the majority, mayors are elected from the Albanian community. in the elections boycotted by the former in which the participation was about 3% and the situation descended into violent clashes with dozens of injuries.
Questions were also asked about the political gestures expressed during Roland Garros by a Ukrainian tennis player, who refused to shake hands with a Belarusian opponent at the end of the match, in the context of the invasion of Russia and the role of Belarus’s ally, Oudéa . -Castera got the difference.
For the minister “it is understandable, although we always want to have fair play until the end to shake hands” because for the Ukrainians “there is a disease that I respect.”
Source: La Verdad
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