The Olympic Federation of Ireland held a virtual AGM yesterday and spoke positively about the prospects of the Tokyo Games going ahead in their revised slot of July and August 2021.

The meeting was addressed by new Minister of State for Sport Jack Chambers and by Sport Ireland CEO John Treacy.

The Annual Report showed that the OFI had disbursed €530,000 over the past 18 months to 46 projects and still produced a surplus of €104,072.

The source of the OFI income was also laid out in a transparent manner with 35 per cent coming from the IOC’s Global Sponsorship programme and 25 per cent attributed to local sponsorship from partners including FBD Insurance, Indeed, Circle K and others.

22 per cent comes from Sport Ireland grants, 10 per cent directly from the international Olympic movement and a further with per cent through the Olympic Solidarity programme.

Sponsor Stepping Away

The meeting heard that an estimated €3 million would be spent in 2021 on preparing for the games and also that FBD Insurance would be stepping away from the sponsorship after the games due to a clash with Allianz who are coming on board as a Global partner of the games in that category of insurance.

Allianz holds the same position within the International Paralympic Committee and selected Ireland as one of the National Olympic Committees it supports but no discussion has taken place yet on whether that might also be the case with the Olympic Federation of Ireland.

The report is comprehensive and delivers on the promise of transparency that was made in the wake of scandal and reputation damage suffered after the Rio Games.

The full Annual Report can be viewed HERE.

Thankfully that is behind the organisation now and there was a real sense of positive momentum both in how the organisation is being run and in the performance of the athletes, 52 of whom are already qualified to travel to Tokyo.

Elections

The makeup of the Executive Committee, effectively the Board of the OFI, will change in December when the plans for elections that would have had a natural cycle pre-Covid, will still take place.

This means that the incoming group will oversee not only the rescheduled Games but also the Paris Games of 2024.

Yesterday’s meeting passed a motion that 40 per cent of the new board would be representative of each gender, beyond the IOC recommendation of 30 per cent and a right move at the right time with female athletes approaching 50 per cent of those who will compete at the games, probably a lot more in an Irish shirt.

There will be eleven places up for election and with rounding to the nearest whole number this means that there will be a minimum of four men and four women.

Decisions on which of the current committee will go forward again and the potential skill sets required from two new independent directors will be made clear over the coming month or so.

Partnership Memorandum

The meeting also heard confirmation that the OFI will set up a partnership memorandum on certain common areas of strategic interest with Paralympics Ireland.

“It was an important day to have this milestone (of gender balance) approved at our AGM by our 39 member sports who unanimously approved the changes,” said OFI CEO Peter Sherrard.

“Gender diversity is extremely important and has been shown to enhance good decision making. Ultimately we all benefit.”

Today also saw the soft launch for a new OFI website which will be developed further in the coming months and can be viewed at www.olympics.ie