The three candidates for the Presidency of the Olympic Council of Ireland came together in debate on Saturday Sport and outlined a number of areas where they believe only a vote for them can lead to improvement.
Willie O’Brien is the most senior in terms of OCI experience going for a sixth term in office after three on the Executive Committee and two as first vice president.
When quizzed by Joanne Cantwell on how this tallies with a recommendation in the Deloitte Report that no officer should serve more than two terms, he appeared to agree and disagree at the same time.
The way the polling works though this does not necessarily rule him out of contention. Voting will take place on February 9th at an extraordinary general meeting of the OCI and the incoming 12 places will be determined by the votes of 36 National Governing Bodies and the nine outgoing Council members.
Sarah Keane is standing for a second term and is reported to have gathered the confirmed support of a number of bodies.
See the full line up of candidates for all positions in the new OCI
The main hurdle she has to overcome is the barely concealed anger of the more traditional members of the committee who seem to hold her responsible for a large spend on advisers in the wake of the Rio scandals that engulfed the group through the end of 2016.
She was one of three appointed to a crisis sub committee who took on advice from Arthur and Deloitte in order to clarify areas that were bringing serious reputation damage on the organisation.
Both reports were leaked before publication suggesting that this was not a united Committee and that antipathy has carried through to the voting process.
Bernard O’Byrne from Basketball Ireland was one from the outside to ask the first questions on behalf of sporting bodies who were themselves facing awkward questioning from stakeholders.
There is a sense that his and Keane’s candidacies could yet split the ‘new’ vote leaving O’Brien in pole position with a solid power base from his own cohort of sports.
This report in the Irish Times gives a run down on the RTÉ Radio interview.
Sport for Business will also be sending a series of questions to the candidates this week and will publish in full the answers we get back in areas that will be of interest for the new President over the course of the next four years.
