As published by Inside The Games on 2 July, the main reason for the decision is "insufficient time for the recovery of athletes who will be competing in major international tournaments in the summer of 2024", the International Friendship Association said in a statement on Tuesday.

IFA believes that "this measure will allow for a more representative participation of athletes and provide an opportunity to expand the programme of the World Friendship Games with cultural and entertainment components."

If the Government of the Russian Federation agrees to the postponement, the Organising Committee and the International Friendship Association will propose new dates for the event. A letter with the proposal has been sent to the Russian Government for consideration and preparation of the necessary documents.

Originally scheduled for September 2024, the event has received applications from nearly 2,500 athletes from 127 countries to compete in 36 sports at 21 venues, 17 in Moscow and four in Yekaterinburg. The committee also took into account Russia's busy sporting calendar for 2024, highlighting events such as the new international e-sports and digital tournament Future Games, which took place in February-March, and the BRICS Games, which concluded in Kazan in June.

The secretary general of the International Friendship Association (IFA), Jerome explained to Inside The Games that "the postponement is logical. "Why have the Games this year, which is in terms of a multi-sport event focused on Paris 2024? I always thought that 24 was not the correct year to have them and definitely 2025 is much better".

Valcke served as FIFA General Secretary from 27 June 2007 to 17 September 2015. Accordig to him, "Russia is a country that has organised many major and international sporting events over the past decades. The FIFA World Cup in 2018, but many other international football competitions before that, such as the Winter and Summer Olympic Games.

Today Russia is in a different situation and the idea behind the World Friendship Games was to organise another important multi-sport event. As far as I have been told, there was never any desire to compete with other events and, by the way, every single time you see new events being organised in different sports. It has unfortunately been politicised, but we are not working in that spirit," he said.

He denied that there were any other reasons for the postponement and confirmed that "all the organisational structure is in place. There is so much experience in Russia to do this and now we have to work on the format, the sports, the countries, to make sure that in the future it will be a nice event to be organised mainly in the countries that are part of the alliance with Russia.”

Valcke told Inside The Games that “there are always challenges when you want to start a new project. Definitely a bit more due to the situation and due to the fact it became very political between the IOC and Russia at a time." Russia is currently at war with Ukraine and banned from competing at the 2024 Paris Olympics.

Regarding those criticising the Friendship Games and trying to boycott them, Valcke is adamant that “I thought sports is about friendship without political or discrimination involved. The Russian athletes have the right as the Belorussian to be part of competitions. They are in Paris. They can have an event organised in their homeland in 2025 and again not against other event organisers.”