At the Rimini Meeting, Sports Minister Andrea Abodi took a stand on the debate concerning the exclusion of Israeli athletes from international competitions. “It would be a step backwards,” he explained, “in terms of the function of sport, which should unite rather than divide”. According to the minister, diplomacy must prevail at this stage, without turning sport into a field of political confrontation. However, the judgment expressed on the exclusion of Russian athletes after the invasion of Ukraine was different. Abodi recalled that Moscow's attack “was a much more bloody and aggressive act, which affected the sovereignty of a country that had to be defended”. His statements provoked a reaction from the Russian embassy in Italy, which spoke on Facebook of ‘double standards’ on the part of the West. According to the diplomatic representation, the minister's words show a partial assessment of international conflicts, as well as ‘distorting the task of those who should only be concerned with Olympic preparation’.