Geopolitics and sport do not always go well together. Former basketball player Emilie Gomis left her post as ambassador for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games on Wednesday, after being criticized for an Instagram post about Israel, the Olympic Games organizing committee (Cojo) said in a statement. communicated.
The Paris-2024 general assembly, meeting on Wednesday, “considered that this publication contravened its duty of neutrality and no longer allowed it to be able to calmly carry out its missions with Paris-2024”, specifies the press release. “Emilie Gomis, in a shared concern for appeasement and responsibility, wished to present her resignation from her mandate as member of the Board of Directors and ambassador of the Terre de Jeux 2024 label to Paris 2024 which takes note of this,” adds the Cojo.
“Exemplary behavior” requested
Two days after the attacks perpetrated by Hamas in Israel on October 7, the former basketball player briefly published a message in which we saw maps of France from 1947, 1967 and 2023, on which the tricolor flag covering French territory was gradually replaced by the Israeli flag, with this question: “What would you do in this situation?” “.
“In our statutes, it is clearly indicated that the representatives of Paris-2024 must have exemplary behavior and with a desire for appeasement with regard to these subjects”, then underlined Tony Estanguet, the president of Cojo.
The regrets of Emilie Gomis
The Board of Directors and the Paris 2024 General Assembly therefore met this Wednesday to hear Emilie Gomis and her lawyers. “The members of the Board of Directors and the General Assembly were thus able to note that Emilie Gomis condemned the attacks of October 7 in Israel, all forms of anti-Semitism or discrimination, contrary to her values. Emilie Gomis also shared her regrets regarding her publication and apologized,” indicates Cojo.
However, these apologies were not enough for her to keep her position, even if the Cojo recognized in its message “the remarkable career of Emilie Gomis as an athlete but also her commitments to the promotion of the sporting activity of youth and the values of sport and Olympism”.