LAUSANNE, Switz., Oct. 8, 2024 – A German court has imposed an injunction against the dissemination of allegations by the leading German TV consortium ARD about a “system of bribing referees” in the International Fencing Federation (FIE).
On August 4, 2024, ARD broadcast a report that contained a number of slanderous and untrue statements about fencing with regard to an alleged “system of bribing referees” in the FIE.
FIE President-elect Alisher Usmanov, who voluntarily suspended his duties in March 2022 due to EU sanctions and was named in the report as the “creator” of this “system,” filed a request for an injunction against WDR, a consortium member of ARD that disseminated the slanderous allegations, with the Hamburg Regional Court. The statements were banned by a decision of this court, which found them to be “inadmissible suspicion-based reporting.” As a consequence of the ruling, they may no longer be reproduced or disseminated.
Earlier, these statements were also deleted by a number of other media outlets as a result of pretrial proceedings.
The court prohibits the network “...from making and/or distributing, and/or creating grounds for making and/or distributing” specific statements contained in its original report.
“We are satisfied with the court’s decision”, said FIE Interim President Emmanuel Katsiadakis. “The refereeing practice in fencing is transparent and the FIE values the reputation of fencing as a fair and clean sport. I firmly believe there should be no place for defamation and misrepresentation from respectable media outlets.”