Degtyarev Vows to Intervene in KHL Accreditation Row

Russia's sports minister, Mikhail Degtyarev, said on 3 September he is prepared to intervene in a row between the Kontinental Hockey League and several journalists who have been denied accreditation without explanation.

Among those shut out is Alexei Shevchenko, special correspondent for Sport-Ekspress, who was refused even a one-off pass to cover matches. Degtyarev, who also chairs the Russian Olympic Committee, said he would raise the matter with the league's leadership.

"Let's check with the KHL. We met recently over the 80th anniversary of Russian hockey. We meet regularly on this year's competitions, award ceremonies, exhibition matches. So I will speak with the league's leadership and ask why," Degtyarev said.

He called the refusals "not a good subject" and argued that journalists belong alongside athletes, coaches and fans as part of the game itself.

"It's not a good topic, of course, when people are refused. Everyone should be let in. These are our allies. I always say the whole ecosystem of sport is the athlete, the coach, the organiser, the fan and the journalist. How can it work without that? That's why we adopted an ethics charter for Russian sport at the ministry's board meeting," Degtyarev said.

Nikolai Dolgopolov, honorary president of the Russian Federation of Sports Journalists, went further. Shevchenko's application had been turned down on the grounds it did not meet the league's accreditation rules, but Dolgopolov said nothing resembling misconduct was behind it.

"Look, doesn't the league deserve criticism? Probably it does. And even if it does, a person must never be stripped of his professional livelihood — of what he knows how to do, what feeds him and his family and what is also his professional duty. Just to cast him aside like that. In my view, that is, to put it mildly, an ugly thing to do," Dolgopolov said.

He noted a journalist can lose the right to work at competitions over insults or poor conduct at press conferences or during matches, but said, by all accounts, nothing of that kind had happened here.

The federation has written to the KHL's leadership over the case. Dolgopolov described the replies as vague, faceless and unhelpful.

"What sport can there be without journalists? What can be told about sport, what can be shown, if sports journalists are absent from competitions? Those would simply be failed tournaments, performances nobody hears of. I have worked in sports journalism since 1973, and I tell you plainly: without sports journalists, sport is unthinkable," Dolgopolov said.

The ministry's ethics charter, covering athletes, fans, officials and journalists, commits signatories to serve Russian sport "honestly and with full dedication". Whether that document carries any weight with the KHL's own accreditation decisions is, in effect, the question Degtyarev has now promised to put to the league.