‘If you turn against a certain person, you must step down immediately’
EXCLUSIVE: Why did the Greek Emmanuel Katsiadakis unexpectedly resign as interim president of the Fédération Internationale d'Escrime (FIE) in April 2025? Read the answer here: because he refused to send a letter to US President Trump asking for the sanctions against Alisher Usmanov to be lifted.
Things are once again heating up behind the scenes at the International Fencing Federation, which has effectively been run by the Uzbek-Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov since 2009. Usmanov, one of the richest people on the planet, has since pumped more than hundred million USD into the federation. There is wild speculation in fencing circles about a letter from the International Olympic Committee (IOC) which apparently demands crucial rule changes regarding refereeing, among other topics. Otherwise, fencing risks being dropped from the Olympic programme. At the next IOC session in June 2026 in Lausanne, decisions are to be made regarding the future programme of the Games of the Olympiad and the Winter Olympics. Drastic changes are expected.
However, it is reasonable to doubt whether IOC president Kirsty Coventry, who is already extremely weakened both internally and externally after just one year and has recently delivered a dismal performance, will go so far as to remove fencing from the Olympic programme. After all, it is the sport of the current IOC Honorary President Thomas Bach, who always got on wonderfully well with Usmanov and who accepted a donation worth millions from the oligarch six years ago: in the form of an original manuscript by the IOC’s founding father Pierre de Coubertin, which Usmanov had purchased at auction at Sotheby’s for 8.8 million dollars.
