The IIHF will decide about Ice Hockey World Championships in autumn

The IIHF is to reconsider whether Lukashenko’s Belarus - with its questionable human rights situation - is the right country to host the Ice Hockey World Championships in 2014.

Belarus has been chosen as the host nation for the IIHF World Championships in 2014, but the country’s questionable human rights situation is drawing wide attention.

“The IIHF has been contacted by various parties on account of the Belarus issue, for which reason the matter has now been brought up among the Federation’s directors”, says IIHF Vice-President Kalervo Kummola, one of the strong men in Finnish ice hockey.

The IIHF will decide on a possible replacement host in its autumn meeting in Japan..

Kummola does not want to comment on whether Belarus would be granted the tournament, if the host was to be decided upon now.

“Back then [in 2009] the situation was similar. Some of the leaders of the country were under an overseas travel ban. No opposition politicians were under arrest, however.”

The Ice Hockey World Championships have been moved once before. After the Soviet Union had occupied Czechoslovakia in 1968, the spring 1969 tournament was played in Stockholm instead of Prague.