Serious fault lines are emerging within the administration of Irish sport over the action and reaction of the Olympic Council of Ireland to the ticketing controversy in Rio.
Basketball Ireland CEO Bernard O’Byrne wrote a letter to the Executive Committee of the OCI this week which posed a number of questions surrounding the events in Rio and seeking clarification on the OCI’s continued support or otherwise for those involved.
The letter, approved by the board of Basketball Ireland was revealed in yesterday’s Irish Independent and O’Byrne was willing to speak freely of his concerns throughout the day.
Those concerns are genuine, especially at a time when Sport Ireland’s bid for money in the budget is coming before politicians and Department of Finance officials.
O’Byrne has been the most vocal of Ireland’s sports administrators throughout the series of events in Rio. Speaking to the Pat Kenny show on Newstalk during the early days of the scandal he said of Hickey
“There’s a lot of people over the last 25 or 30 years have suffered the verbal or metaphorical swords that Pat Hickey wielded from time to time. It doesn’t surprise me that there is not a queue forming.”
“He’s a dogmatic, arrogant man. He’s a doer. He gets things done… His rise has been very substantial, and probably one of the most successful Irish sports administrators ever. That doesn’t make him a warm person or a liked person.”
In the latest letter OI’Byrne called on acting OCI President William O’Brien to meet with sporting bosses as soon as possible to clarify questions for which they were struggling to give answers within their own sport.
The OCI is reported to have agreed to this but only after the conclusion of an internal independent investigation which will be in October.
By that time many of the decisions on the future funding of sport may well be in train.
O’Byrne’s base is at the National Basketball Centre, away from the National Sports Campus base of many sports organisations including Swim Ireland whose CEO Sarah Keane is on the three person Crisis Committee appointed by the OCI.
