The Belarusian language has been forbidden at press conferences, Belarusian journalist Vyachaslau Fedarenkau reports.
The Continental Hockey League has forbidden Minsk Dynama to use the Belarusian language at press conferences, Belarusian journalist Vyachaslau Fedarenkau informs.
"There is another negative CHL news – Moscow has forbidden Belarusians to speak Belarusian,” tribuna.com quotes Fedarenkau. “Something similar happened a few years ago when the league switched to Latin letters on T-shirts and noticed that Minsk was using the Belarusian transcription.
And now the league has noticed that the club uses Kupala’s language at briefings and has got mad about it. The league has pronounced a warning and promised to punish the club ‘with the Russian rouble’.
This news filled me with indignation: ‘What?!’ I doubt that Moscow would be so principled in a similar situation with Helsinki or Zagreb. I can’t even imagine the NHL forbidding Montreal to speak French.
I do not know Dynama’s official position as regards the incident, but I would struggle in their place. It is a matter of the national dignity. If the CHL rules forbid it, they need to be reconsidered for non-Russian clubs.
A coalition could be created if necessary and Belarus is not a country that may be ignored in the international league. Otherwise, we will have to keep practicing penmanship on somebody else’s paper and the owner will keep mentioning the fact all the time. Do we need it?..”
