Polish Minister of Sports and Tourism Kamil Bortniczuk said as many as 40 countries could boycott the next Olympics, rendering the entire event meaningless.
His comments came after Poland, Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia jointly rejected a plan by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to allow Russians and Belarusians to compete in 2024.
Ukraine threatened to boycott the Paris Olympics If that happens.
But the IOC said on Thursday that any boycott would only “punish athletes”.
Bortniczuk said he believes it is possible to build a coalition of 40 countries, including the UK, US and Canada, to help block the IOC’s plans before the February 10 meeting.
He added: “Considering this, I don’t think we’ll be faced with difficult decisions before the Olympics and if we boycott the Olympics, the alliance we’re in will be broad enough to makes hosting the Olympics meaningless.”
IOC announced last week that it would “discover a path” allowing Russian and Belarusian athletes to compete in Paris under a neutral flag, adding that “athletes should not be prevented from competing just because of their passports”.
The move was condemned, with the UK Government saying the plan was a “world away from the reality of war”.
Ukraine’s sports minister Vadym Guttsait said the country’s sports bodies needed to “intensify contacts” with international federations to maintain the ban on Russian and Belarusian athletes, which was approved by the executive committee. The IOC imposed it shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
However, IOC president Thomas Bach has since said that it was only intended as a “protective” measure for those athletes and now insists they should not be discriminated against.
On Thursday, the sports ministers of Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Poland said “any attempt by the International Olympic Committee to bring back Russian and Belarusian athletes to compete, even under one neutral flag, should be rejected”.
They added: “Attempts to bring Russian and Belarusian athletes back to international sport competition under the veil of neutrality legitimizes the political decisions and widespread propaganda of these countries.”
And they called on “all international sports organizations and federations” to remove Russian and Belarusian athletes from international competitions until the end of the war.
The US government said it supported the suspension of Russian and Belarusian sports governing bodies from international sports organisations, and encouraged organizations to stop broadcasting events in both countries. .
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre added that, if athletes are allowed to participate in events like the Olympics, it must be neutral athletes and “it should be absolutely clear that they does not represent the countries of Russia or Belarus”.
The IOC reiterated that there has been no discussion about the return of Russian and Belarusian athletes to competition, and warned Ukraine and other countries about the impact of the threat of a boycott.
“The threat to boycott the Olympic Games, which the NOC of Ukraine is currently considering, goes against the fundamental principles of the Olympic movement and the principles it represents,” the IOC wrote in a question-and-answer document. announced on Thursday.
“Boycott is a violation of the Olympic charter, which mandates that all NOCs ‘take part in the Olympics by sending athletes’. As history has shown, previous boycotts failed to reach political purposes but only to punish the athletes of the boycotting NOCs.”
