To say it was a day quite unlike any other would be an understatement.
Pat Hickey has been President of the Olympic Council of Ireland since 1989, a career in sporting politics that has lasted 28 years. He was President of the European Olympic Committee since 2006 and the holder of other equally prestigious titles bestowed upon him by his political peers as reward for his unquestioned ability to foster lasting and influential relationships.
Little did he think when he awoke in his Rio hotel yesterday morning that he would end the day having stepped aside from all his Olympic posts, in hospital for observation and facing charges from the Brazil police that could earn him a seven year jail sentence.
The charges are serious. They cover the illegal marketing and sale of Olympic tickets and the formation of a cartel to do so.
Evidence
Evidence from emails on one of his three phones seized by police has been dripping from the police who also released video footage of the arrest. It was more OJ Simpson than a day at Dublin Castle for a judicial inquiry, though that may be coming when the dust has settled in Brazil.
Those emails include embarrassing details of legal advice which prompted Hickey to dismiss Government calls for transparency and independence in the OCI’s internal investigation of these matters.
Sometimes the facts in a situation can be less impactful that the perception and that, in this case, is embarrassing for Irish sport, for Ireland’s reputation on a world stage, and for those athletes of today and tomorrow whose own funding and potential place in history may now be threatened.
Five Ring Circus
Money and the Olympics are inseparable. The whole five ring circus could not exist without the billions of commercial and media revenue that it draws from companies eager to associate themselves with one of the biggest collective experiences we have.
There is nothing wrong in commercial partnership. Let that be clear. What is wrong is when the machine becomes too big for any one city or country, when power is concentrated in the hands of an undemocratic, at least in popular terms, elite.
Regardless of whether they intend harm by their actions, and most would not, they live in a different world to those whose urban infrastructure they impose the games upon.
Olympic posts are voluntarily undertaken. They are so though in many cases by members of Royal families to whom a life of glorious wealth and excess is second nature. They wield power and sometimes, at the highest levels that is done without much grace.
Few Willing to Express Support
Over the past 24 hours we have spoken to many within the sporting, political and business establishment. Few were willing to express support for Pat Hickey at anything other than a basic human level. He has made enemies on the way up the ladder of global politics. Perhaps that comes with the territory. Now that he is facing his greatest challenge, that lack of support will envelop him like a winter’s icy chill.
He is of course innocent until irrefutable proof, rather than circumstance and innuendo is laid before us.
He may resume his duties as President of the Irish and European Olympic Committees, and as Vice President of the Association of National Olympic Committees but that is a long way away from where we stand now.
Politics and Image
Statements have been flying from the OCI over the course of this sorry saga. Two last night though came not from the UK office that up until now had been handling communications but from a Dublin based agency more closely associated with politics and image than sport or business.
They were crisp, to the point and part of a process of handing over the responsibility for the organisation from Pat Hickey to William O’Brien.
We are no strangers to stories that you could never have dreamed possible but which turn out to be fact. We coined the phrase of GUBU – Grotesque, Unprecedented, Bizarre, and Unbelievable. This is our GUBU for another generation, and sadly within sport.
When seeing the arrest video my first reaction was this could only be a spoof and that it would prove to be just a wild rumour. It wasn’t.
Warrants
Warrants have also been issued for the arrest of three more Irish citizens, all directors of Pro10, the authorised ticket reseller for the Olympic Council of Ireland whose inventory of tickets ended up in the possession of Kevin Mallon, the first man arrested on the opening night of the games.
Pro10 themselves issued a statement through another PR agency that protested once more their absolute innocence of any wrongdoing.
All in all this is a murky tale, stirred by real or imagined associations between people who might have thought a little deeper about how this would look to an outside eye.
It remains the most likely scenario that so few tickets were sold that all the normal process of a successful venture were put on hold and back up plans to save face, and a small fortune, were hastily put together.
Conspiracy
The thought of a conspiracy to tout tickets for events notable by the sparse numbers in attendance is almost unbelievable in itself but that is a recurring theme of every twist and turn in this tale.
The police though are talking in hard numbers of a scheme that stood to net €2.6 million in profit for somebody.
The reason they are acting with such speed and force is that ticket sales are generally the only way for the local organising committee to recoup the cost of staging the games. Global sponsorship and broadcast revenue says with the rights holder.
With a court ruling preventing any more public expenditure, a ruling which carries a serious threat to the staging of the Paralympic Games, the thought of rich Europeans conspiring to make money from their exorbitant resale would anger the local people and act as a lightning rod to divert attention from whether it was ever right to did and stage the games.
Pause for Thought
Rio has been a Games to remember but also a Games to forget. For those of us who mark their life in even numbered circles from World Cup to Olympics it gives pause for thought as to whether we have been deluding ourselves on the noble pursuit of being as good as we can be in sport.
That is grossly unfair on Annalise Murphy, on Gary and Paul O’Donovan, on Oliver Dingley, Thomas Barr, Michael Conlan, Katie Taylor, Scott Evans, Davey Harte and all those who have devoted every second of their time, every ounce of their energy and effort in single minded pursuit of excellence.
That Ireland is so caught up in the miasma that has encircled the games is sad, horrible, incredible, terrible and embarrassing. In fact that is a acronym that sums it up with the level of inelegance it perhaps deserves.
