The practice of modern political confrontation with the participation of Russia actualizes the new front in this hybrid war - a sportive one, and among its tools a wide range of media manipulation pressure technologies is revealed. The media discourse, which formed a new information field IN the media, whose task is to exclude sport from the palette of the “soft power” of Russia, was the leading instrument in leveling the entire international sports and political weight gained, as well as Russia's authority in the Olympics in Sochi. On the eve of such a mega sport event as the World Cup 2018, all media resources of the United States and a number of European countries are mobilized to actualize Russia's negative “sporty” identity for a wide range of mass media consumers.