For more than a century, the Olympic Games and the FIFA World Cup have represented the pinnacle of sporting achievement and global unity.

They have inspired generations of athletes, connected billions of fans and created extraordinary commercial value. The International Olympic Committee and FIFA have transformed themselves into two of the world’s most powerful sporting organizations, controlling assets that generate billions of dollars through broadcasting rights, sponsorships, licensing, hospitality and global partnerships.

But that success has created a new challenge. 

The time has come – now, literally now – to consider external regulation. 

The International Olympic Committee on Tuesday lifted its suspension of the Russian Olympic Committee, a move that makes it all the more likely — probable — a full Russian team will compete at the Los Angeles 2028 Summer Games.

The decision Tuesday was inevitable.

Too, appropriate — and way past overdue, the key step in correction of a series of IOC actions taken after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 that have constructively achieved, what? 

Absolutely nothing.

“The kind of movement we want for the future must … be reflected in how we lead,” IOC president Kirsty Coventry said Wednesday amid her opening remarks to the assembly.

OK, so how is Kirsty Coventry leading? What is “Fit for the Future,” really?

How about a $10,000 “grant” for every Olympic athlete?

What about, though, a potential Hunger Games-style infighting for those sports - er, disciplines - fighting to stay on the Olympic program?

The men’s World Cup is nearly upon us, and with it a telling if not altogether disturbing push in some quarters to turn to Celsius, meters and, worst of all, British English. 

We the People! This summer, as the World Cup bracket plays out, marks the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. The 13 colonies broke away from the British. We won. This is the United States of America. And so this truth ought to be self-evident: let’s speak American English.

Kirsty Coventry has been president of the International Olympic Committee for, by her count at a news conference Thursday, 318 days.

In almost every meaningful way, Coventry is now executing a pivot away from predecessor Thomas Bach, IOC president from September 2013 until last June. Indeed, it is said behind the scenes in Lausanne, at IOC headquarters, that Coventry has little to maybe no interest in the past — only what lies ahead.