Think what they are suggesting is that they can put political pressure on the associations which control the various sports to put bans on Russian involvement at various prestige events. I'm not sure if they've really thought that through, though. No way will F1 back out of the Russian GP unless there are real security concerns about the teams and I cannot envisage FIFA taking the WC away from Russia with 4 years still to go (an age in political terms). UEFA might be persuaded to ban Russia from the European Championships but with qualifiers starting already and with a lot of pro-Russian countries who could possibly boycott the event that's a minefield I'm sure they'll want to avoid.
That might work the other way, though. If countries like USA, England, Spain, Germany, Italy, France etc... all threatened now to boycott the 2018 WC unless Russia withdraws it would put a lot of commercial pressure on FIFA & Russia as a WC without those countries would be a failure.
