Sport

Hickey now looks for his life's work to bear fruit

JOHNNY WATTERSON reports from London on the secret ballot that will decide if Pat Hickey becomes a made man

Thu Jul 26 2012 - 01:00

JOHNNY WATTERSONreports from London on the secret ballot that will decide if Pat Hickey becomes a made man

TODAY AT around 4pm in the Grosvenor House Hotel in London’s Mayfair area, Ireland’s Olympic Council of Ireland president, Pat Hickey, may become a made man in the Olympic movement.

Hickey’s ambition to become one of the top 14 players in the IOC’s inner sanctum, the executive board, would make him singularly the most powerful sports administrator in Ireland and one of the most powerful in the Olympic movement.

The executive board consists of the IOC president Jaques Rogge, four vice-presidents and 10 other members. All the members of the board are elected in what they call an IOC session, which is currently taking place in London. That selection process is by secret ballot.

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Hickey had a shot at the top table before but it didn’t end the way he wanted. But in the intervening years he has inched further up the IOC ladder and is now president of the European Olympic Committees, an umbrella organisation within the IOC of all the European nations. He wears many hats in the movement but another is as a member of the commission for the co-ordination of the next Olympic Games in Rio.

In the IOC, the commissions and presidential positions of IOC off shoots is where alliances are made and broken. It is, said Hickey recently “not for the faint hearted”.

A recent spat in March following the abrupt resignation of long time Olympic powerbroker, Mario Vazquez Rana, briefly shone light on the occasional dog fights that the IOC traditionally keep out of the media. Vazquez was so furious about being out flanked that he made his four-page resignation letter public.

The 79-year-old Mexican media magnate resigned as president of the association of national Olympic committees, a position he held for more than 30 years. He also quit his roles as IOC member, IOC executive board member and president of Olympic Solidarity, the body that distributes grants to national bodies to help athletes from smaller nations to compete at the Games.

In the letter Vazquez Rana angrily denounced an “outrageous and aggressive” campaign by his opponents to oust him. When the smoke had cleared Hickey was well placed to take over Vazquez Rana’s place on the executive board, the vote today in the Grosvenor House Hotel testing the veracity of that speculation.

Were there to be a positive outcome, it would put Hickey in the engine room, or as he put it himself in Dublin a month ago “one of the key decision makers” in the movement”.

And that’s exactly what the executive board does – makes all the important calls for the IOC. It assumes the general overall responsibility for the administration of the IOC and monitors the observance of the Olympic Charter, which is the set of rules that governs every decision made by the movement.

It approves the IOC’s internal organisation and is responsible for the management of the organisation’s finances. Among many responsibilities it reports on any proposed changes of the Olympic Charter and recommends candidates for election to the IOC and also conducts the procedure for the selection and organisation of the Olympic Games.

Over 200 nations compete in the Olympic Games. In Ireland we are culturally distanced from the Winter Games, although Irish athletes do compete but the organisation shifts up a gear every two years, not just every four.

Its sway in international sport and its financial muscle is enormous. But it wasn’t until the retirement of Avery Brundage in 1972 that the movement seriously began to explore the lucrative opportunities of global sponsorship. Lord Michael Killanin took over from the American but it was under Spaniard, Juan Antonio Samaranch, that the Games shifted towards targeting the giant corporations as sponsors.

In 1985 Samaranch created The Olympic Movement (TOP). Membership was $50 million every four years for exclusive use of the five interlocking rings. Brundage left the IOC with $2 million in assets. Television income for the next winter Olympics in Sochi and the summer Olympics in Rio is expected to reach $4 billion.

In today’s secret ballot, Hickey’s main voting block will come from Europe. His perspicacity following the break up of the Soviet Union was to offer a soft Olympic shoulder to the emerging nations. More recently he aligned himself with Sheikh Ahmad Al-Fahah Al-Sabah of Kuwait to extend his reach beyond European borders.

But it’s a different IOC to the one president Jacques Rogge inherited from Samaranch, which was bedevilled by corruption. Now the president sleeps in the athlete’s village. Hickey is not in the village but he will sleep well tonight if his life’s work to date in the Olympic movement bears fruit.