What happened
Russian national and club teams have been barred from International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) tournaments since 2022. On January 21, 2026, the IIHF Council decided not to bring them back for the 2026–27 season, citing safety and security concerns. The Russian Ice Hockey Federation (RIHF) appealed to the IIHF Disciplinary Board, which annulled that decision on May 25, 2026, while stating that Russia had not been automatically reintegrated, and sent the matter back to the Council to reassess on safety, security, operational and sporting grounds. The Council reviewed separately each of the five championships the RIHF had asked to enter and announced on July 30, 2026, that Russia would not take part in the 2027 Men’s World Championship, World Junior Championship or U18 Men’s and Women’s World Championships because of ongoing safety, security and sporting integrity concerns. It put off a decision on the 2027 Women’s World Championship until November 2026. The RIHF and the IIHF agreed to skip the internal instances and take the dispute straight to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) for a final ruling, and the RIHF appealed in late August 2026, sending the full text to CAS on August 31 (CAS 2026/A/12753). The RIHF was represented by the international law firm Curtis, Mallet-Prevost, Colt & Mosle (Anna Kozmenko, a partner in its Geneva office) and by the RIHF’s director general Dmitry Kurbatov and his deputy Alexander Kiknadze. The IIHF’s counsel have not been named publicly: Kozmenko said only that an international law firm represented it. A panel of Giulio Palermo (president, Italy), Ismail Selim (Egypt) and Mark Hovell (UK) heard the case in person in Lausanne on October 23 and 26, 2026. On October 30, 2026, CAS announced the operative part of its award: the panel unanimously upheld the appeal and set aside the Council’s decision with immediate effect. According to CAS, the panel found that the IIHF’s safety and security arguments were not supported by sufficient evidence, noted that the Disciplinary Board had already found the evidence insufficient, and concluded that under the IIHF’s regulations only substantiated security concerns could justify keeping athletes of a particular nationality out of competitions. The IIHF must admit Russian teams to the World Junior Championship (Canada, December 26, 2026, to January 5, 2027), the U18 Women’s and Men’s World Championships (Czech Republic, January 2027, and the United States, April and May 2027), the Men’s World Championship (Germany, May 2027) and the Women’s World Championship (Canada, November 2027). The panel ordered no alternative measures, such as a neutrality regime, and did not discuss organizational consequences, which were not requested and were not part of the appeal. The reasons will follow. The IIHF said it disagrees with the ruling’s immediate effect and maintains that its decisions were needed to protect the safety of all participants, but that it respects the authority of CAS and will act in accordance with the ruling. The IIHF Council was due to discuss implementation at its meeting on November 2–3, 2026. The field for the World Junior Championship, which starts on December 26, had been set without Russia by the time of the ruling. Canada’s Secretary of State for Sport, Adam van Koeverden, said Canada will maintain restrictions on the participation of Russian athletes at events it hosts. A further RIHF appeal, against the Disciplinary Board’s May 2026 decision (CAS 2026/A/12558), is pending.
Why it is notable
According to CAS, the panel held that under the IIHF’s rules a federation may keep a country’s teams out of its tournaments on security grounds only where the concerns are substantiated by evidence. That sets the case apart from the curling appeals decided two weeks earlier: on October 13, 2026, CAS dismissed the Russian Curling Federation’s appeals and kept Russian adult athletes out of World Curling events, finding that World Curling’s decisions addressed problems for the proper running of its competitions and were not disciplinary (CAS 2026/A/12777 and CAS 2026/A/12173). Unlike the 2025 luge and skiing awards, which let Russians compete only under the neutral-athlete criteria, the operative part sets no neutrality conditions, and whether Russian teams may play under their flag and anthem is left open. Within the CAS system the award is final, and it can be challenged only before the Swiss Federal Supreme Court on narrow grounds.