World Sailing has found Malaysia guilty of forcing two Israeli windsurfers to withdraw from competing in a championship event held in Langkawi in December last year.
A report by The Jerusalem Post quoted the global governing body for the sport of sailing, saying that should Malaysia breach the “no discrimination” regulation in a future event, sanctions would be imposed.
“Possible sanctions include the non-selection as a future venue, denial of appointment of World Sailing race officials to future regattas in the country, and/or cancellation of membership of World Sailing,” said the report.
World Sailing’s investigation, which was reviewed by an extraordinary meeting of the executive committee in London last Friday, concluded that Malaysia had breached Article 7 of the World Sailing constitution by imposing the restrictions.
The body also found the Israel Sailing Association (ISA) as having contributed to the unfortunate outcome.
“The late starting of the process to enable Israeli sailors to participate, delays and poor communication by all parties during that process, and the late notification of the conditions, contributed to the outcome and made it impossible for World Sailing and IOC (International Olympic Committee) to resolve the incident before the championships.”
World Sailing added all of its championships involve an element of country representation and “at all regattas, flags should be displayed and winners’ anthems played.
“Organising authorities who are not able to meet this requirement should not bid, and will not be selected, to host future World Sailing championships.”
Israel’s Yoav Omer and Noy Drihan withdrew from participating in the ISAF Youth World Championship event which concluded earlier this month after Malaysian authorities imposed restrictions on their participation.
Original article from http://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/nation/2016/01/15/msia-guilty-of-discrimination-in-israeli-windsurfer-issue/
