IOC president opens door to Olympics for eSports

"We want to promote non-discrimination, non-violence, and peace among people. This doesn’t match with video games, which are about violence, explosions and killing. And there we have to draw a clear line,” he said.

Esports that mirror those played in real life – like football or basketball – could be considered for the Olympics, but those that involve gratuitous violence and bloodshed went against "Olympic values”, Bach said.

"So if ever somebody is competing at playing football virtually or playing other sports virtually, this is of high interest. We hope that, then, these players are really delivering sports performance. If at the end would even play the sports in the real world, we would even be more happy,” he said.

The multibillion-dollar video gaming industry has already succeeded in gaining inclusion at the 2022 Asian Games in Hangzhou. China has also recognised esports as a legitimate form of competition, and there have been discussions on whether to include them in China’s National Games. World’s first women’s esports event to debut at Hong Kong Computer and Communications Festival.

Paris, which is soon to be formally announced as the host city of the 2024 Olympic Games, has not ruled out the possibility of including esports as a medal event, but Bach said it was still too early to say.

"These discussions are going on. It will still take some time because this industry is now shaping itself,” Bach said. "It’s a successful industry, but it is not yet really established in an organisational way.”

One of his major concerns was the lack of industry regulators to ensure video game players follow standardised rules. "You have to have somebody who is guaranteeing you that these athletes doing video sports games are not doped, that they are following technical rules, that they are respecting each other.”

Bach, who won a gold medal in fencing for West Germany at the 1976 Games in Montreal, was in Hangzhou last week to meet representatives of Alibaba Group, which has a worldwide sponsorship deal with the IOC through to 2028.

On selecting new sports for the Olympics to attract younger people, Bach said his criteria included whether they were widely practised and whether they offered equal opportunities for men and women, and for developing countries.

For the Tokyo Olympic Games in 2020, the committee picked five new sports: skateboarding, surfing, sports climbing, karate, and baseball/softball as a single entity, from 21 bidders.