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Sport scholars have used the concept of soft power to analyze the politicization of sport in the past decades, mainly by focusing on sporting events. In this paper, the analysis centres on the governing bodies of individual sports, the international sport federations (IFs), and it is argued that through powerful individuals in key roles in IFs soft power processes can be initiated. We focus on the case of Russia since the Russian Federation has had an openly stated strategy to plant Russian nationals in IF leadership positions throughout the past five to ten years. Moreover, due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in spring 2022, IFs saw themselves forced to react to the political developments and exclude Russia from international sport competitions. We show that in those IFs in which Russian nationals had (or have) a high degree of influence, those reactions have been milder or delayed.

International Sport Federations as Forums to Initiate Soft Power Processes: The Case of Russia