Is the IOC the world’s sports Policeman?
A group of individuals hit upon an idea, each in his own place and from his own experiences, analyses and vision. They eventually learn of the existence of each other, their respective ideas and innovations. They establish contact with each other and start communicating about their respective work. Then they come together and agree to establish an organisation founded on their shared vision. One of the central principles of the newly established organisation however is that the membership will be determined by the existing members only and not by any institution that it has spawned to conduct its affairs. In essence therefore, they have established an exclusive club, institutionalised by statutes established by itself, for itself, whilst claiming to be pursuing the best interests of others on whom it depends for its success.
Does the aforementioned piece sound familiar?
It should!
Upon close analysis, one may be hard-pressed to suggest that it sounds very much familiar. The average reader of this Column is being challenged to engage in the requisite research and analysis to determine the extent to which the foregoing seems to describe the origins and modus operandi of any major international sports organisation in existence today.
Whilst many people across the world ponder on the crises resulting from the seemingly endless parade of political leaders imbued by personal agendas they have the capacity to impose on their respective societies, few take the time to analyse just how much the world of sport is subjected to an even more damning political reality. The problem is that sport has been able to convince its adherents that it can be trusted to self-regulate if only because it is altruistic and, for the most part, voluntary.
Close analysis however reveals another embarrassing reality of the anxiety of sports leaders to become political ‘King Tuts’ in their self-perpetuating fiefdoms, essentially creating legacies to themselves and those of their ilk.
Sports analysts across the world are perhaps as prejudiced as those who control the respective international federations of the sports practised. This is evidenced in their perspectives and the inevitable values portrayed in their analyses. As will virtually all aspects of global institutions the ethnic, colour and class biases dictate how the media portrays their sports stories.
In some instances, international sporting bodies engage sports journalists and sport media organisations to portray themselves and their decision in a favourable light that often contradicts the reality that athletes, coaches and officials confront daily.
Unfortunately, unless the athletes and officials come from the wealthier, lighter shade and more influential nations, their voices are like spitting in the wind. No one has time to carry them.
Boxing
The Summer Olympics of 1988 in Seoul, South Korea, was something of a watershed in international sport. Reports from several agencies around the world, led of course by the US media, chided the international governing body for the sport, AIBA, and by extension, the custodians of the Olympic Games, the IOC, for what they described as incredibly poor officiating in the boxing competition.
Of course, the primary cause was the decision by match officials to award the host nation’s Park Si Hun, victory over the obviously talented black American, Roy Jones, in the middleweight gold medal event. Three of the five judges gave the fight to the Korean. However, after the announcement of the decision it was revealed that several judges at the Olympics did not agree. They felt that Jones was cheated.
Perhaps the unkindest cut of the aforementioned boxing debacle at the Seoul Olympics was that at the conclusion of the tournament Jones was voted its most outstanding boxer.
With the US media in the lead, the world of sport and the Olympics got caught up in a web of confusion.
Our analysis here suggests that this ignited an international controversy in the sport.
Fast forward to the last few years and the IOC abrogated unto itself the apparent right to dictate to boxing authorities at the international level that it would determine the future of the sport, at least as far as engagement in the quadrennial Olympics is concerned.
The outcome is that the IOC created its own institutional framework that oversaw all arrangements for the event to be staged at the latest edition of the Summer Olympics in Tokyo over the last two months.
One would have expected a global sports response to what is clear interference in the internal affairs of an international sporting organization, AIBA.
Unfortunately, the monies that IFs earn from their engagement in the Olympics appear to leave them all with their hands in the mouth of the lion, the monolith that is the IOC.
Analyses reveal that not a single IF came to AIBA’s support. None of the IFs wanted to lose whatever funding they receive from the IOC and the glamour that comes from being on the world’s biggest sporting stage, the Olympic Games.
To the astute observer, the reaction of the IFs were directly related to money. An unfortunate reality.
AIBA has bowed to almost every demand of the IOC, seemingly unable and/or unwilling to challenge the authority of the IOC and its own apparent intransigencies and inconsistencies, to say nothing of the evidence of corruption that has, from time to time, plagued the latter institution through some of its members who have for years sat in judgement over IFs.
It may also be the case that IF, standing in line for IOC funding, may be thinking that after AIBA, the axe may fall on any one of them if they fail to ‘play the patsy’ with the IOC.
But there are related issues.
Most of the multi-sport Games around the world appear to feel some loyalty to the IOC and its Olympic Games. The Continental Associations, for sure, all take their cue from the Olympics. They are increasingly keen on having as many of their competitions serve as Olympic qualifiers, cementing their relationship with and loyalty to the IOC. The result is that in the existing quadrennial they are all in a quandary as to how to treat boxing in their respective Games. This leaves the different national boxing associations at the mercy of the IOC and less on AIBA. The latter appears to be backed into a corner, into compliance with the IOC or be deemed a pariah.
Ultimately, AIBA seems uncertain as to whether it can survive without the IOC and the Olympic Games.
It’s Weightlifting’s turn
In the period leading up to the Tokyo Olympics, the IOC appeared to have trained its ‘guns’ on the International Wrestling Federation (IWF).
In the past week, Inside The Games’ Brian Oliver penned a piece dated 26 August 2021 that was headlined, “Exclusive: ‘Bach told me weightlifting is doomed if you don’t resign’ angry Davies tells IWF Board Davies heads the Athletes Commission sits on the IWF’s Executive Board.
The aforementioned article by Oliver further reads, “Unless you, the Executive Board, are actually trying to destroy the sport at the Olympic Games, your conduct is completely irrational,” she writes.
“The Executive Board’s utter disregard of President Bach’s warnings appears to be part of a plan to destroy weightlifting as an Olympic sport.
“I had the opportunity to speak with Mr Bach in Tokyo.
“He told me that there is no way weightlifting will stay in the Games in its current form. He indicated that he wants weightlifting in the Olympics, but not in the state it is in now.”
The aforementioned comments tell an ominous tale from several perspectives. More disturbing is the fact that the article claims that “Her message follows a personal discussion with Thomas Bach, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) President.”
One may well glean that somehow Bach may well have apportioned to Davies the perception that she is influential to the point where she could be the bearer of his stance on the sport’s retention on the Olympic Programme.
The other important angle to the Davies comments is that the IOC has only recently given its Executive Board the power to make such decisions. Inside The Games’ Liam Morgan, in a piece dated 8 August 2021, stated, “The IOC membership today rubber-stamped a proposal to grant the Executive Board the power to suspend sports from the Olympic programme without approval from the Session.
“An amendment to the Olympic Charter to ‘clarify the Session may remove any sport from the programme of the Olympic Games if among other violations, the relevant International Federation (IF) governing such sport does not comply with the decisions of the IOC Executive Board or if the relevant IF acts in a manner likely to tarnish the reputation of the Olympic Movement’ has also been approved.”
From our vantage point, it appears that the IOC is bent on flexing its muscles now that it seems to have greater sway over IFs, especially since some of the latter may have gone, cap in hand, to the IOC, seeking advances on their portion of the television rights made available to them following each edition of the Games in which they are involved.
Yet another angle to this debate relates to an incident before the start of the Tokyo Olympics. Morgan’s article noted, “The IOC suffered defeat at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) before Tokyo 2020 after it denied Russian weightlifting official Maxim Agapitov a credential for the Games.
‘The CAS threw out the IOC’s decision and Agapitov was granted an accreditation for Tokyo 2020……
‘We have had a situation where we were successfully challenged when we decided not to accredit someone, and I think the strong view is that the IOC has the absolute right to accredit people to the Games,’ Coates, who is also President of the CAS, said.”
Inside The Games however made no mention of others in the leadership of the IWF who had initially been denied accreditation but who appealed the decision and were eventually accredited.
It now appears that the comments from Coates may well be a sort of tacit admission that the IOC is quickly seeking to close the gap(s) that allowed for the CAS to rule against its initial decision to deny accreditation to the IWF officials.
A closer analysis would suggest that it may well be that the IOC Executive Committee may now feel sufficiently emboldened as a world power through sport that its members can dictate terms and conditions as the organization may have been doing since its inception in 1894 and that institutions that are often declared amongst its pillars dare not mount challenges.
What’s next
The foregoing argument presented in this Column raises the question of what’s next?
Will IFs simply allow themselves to wallow in self-pity and cave in to the dictates of a self-appointed and self-sustaining group of sports officials?
What about the rules of natural justice?
What about the autonomy of IFs and NOCs?
Importantly for the world of sport is the extent to which athletes will allow themselves to be the playthings of those who seem to suggest they control the main levers of power in sport – money, money, money.
Sport has many stakeholders. Unfortunately, it appears that some of the stakeholders have convinced themselves that they wield enough power to determine what happens in sport.
But there are lessons to be learnt from the enthusiastic fans of the sport as the English and European football fans displayed when the monied ownership interests went off, intent on creating a European Super League. It was the long adoring fans that put a stop to it.
In like fashion, if IFs and NOCs fail to take an appropriate stand to ensure the democratisation of sport, the certainly fans will.
