Oh to have been a fly on the wall in the Rio Hotel where Olympic Council of Ireland President Pat Hickey met with Minister for Tourism, Transport and Sport Shane Ross in the early hours of this morning.
It appears to have been a short meeting with ‘no and ‘can’t’ being the words that registered most.
Hickey says the meeting was ‘excellent’ but that is far from the way it was seen by Ross who said he was ‘absolutely stunned’ by the point blank refusal to furnish information gathered to date from Pro 10, the Authorised Ticket Reseller and the International Olympic Committee.
Brick Wall
The similar ‘brick wall’ placed in front of a request for independent representation on the OCI investigation does not come across well for an organisation that has nothing to hide.
The OCI appears to be laying claim to the IOC’s insistence that sport and politics should never mix and that Government ‘interference’ should be resisted in how the Olympic Council conducts its business.
Hickey is claiming that advice from Senior Counsel in Dublin means they cannot release any information gathered so far into the public domain on the basis that it might prejudice any trial of Kevin Mallon, the Irish citizen whose detention, so far without charge, in Rio unearthed the issues surrounding tickets in the first place.
State Funding
The Government perspective is that Irish sport is a significant beneficiary of state funding and as such should be responsible in terms of transparency over how that funding is deployed.
Over the four years of the Rio Cycle the state has channelled €31,191,471 into high performance programmes at 21 National Governing Bodies of Sport as well as the Olympic Council and Paralympics Ireland.
The OCI has been given a total of €1,721,088 including €520,000 in the current year. That money was hard fought for in the budget process and is seen as essential to maintain the performance of elite Irish athletes such as those 77 competing in Rio.
‘Head in the Sand’
The Government is not the sole funder of the Olympic Council but it is the largest single benefactor and the obvious anger within Government at the OCI acting with ‘their head in the sand’ is unlikely to bode well for the OCI and others sports claims on funding for 2017 which will be determined in the coming weeks of the budget process.
The refusal to accept a Department or other independent member of the OCI investigation into the tickets issue seems to be a very short sighted political move, regardless of how it is couched in ‘legal advice.’
Nobody has suggested that anyone from the OCI has done anything underhand, illegal or even wrong with the management of its ticket allocation from Rio but there are questions that need to be answered in terms of how the process works and whether there are lessons to be learned in how it can be done better.
The idea that tickets should be available for collection is not unheard of, especially when organisation of an event has been at short notice but the Olympic dates and venues are set years out. London 2012 distributed tickets to all those travelling to their home addresses well in advance, in much the same way as UEFA did for this summer’s Euro’s.
Protocols
It will be instructive to learn why such strict distribution protocols were not part of the Rio process.
Learning about those protocols and their implementation by the OCI, the IOC and Pro10 should be an easy process.
If that is being obstructed it will raise the thought in the public mind that there is something to hide, and if that perception is allowed to fester it will have a major negative impact on sport, sports funding and the halo effect that most sports get in a short window around each Olympic Games.
Minister Ross is this morning determining with officials and fellow Ministers what the next stage should be in this stand off.
He will be meeting with the Director General of the International Olympic Committee in Rio in the next 48 hours.
Heat
Pat Hickey will be looking to use his undoubted political skills to take the heat out of the situation but that will need movement on how the events of the past week are seen to be explored by the Government as representatives of taxpayers.
His role as a member of the Executive Committee of the IOC means the next week is undoubtedly a busy one with medals to be handed out, relationships to be fostered and the advance of global sport to be managed.
He needs to find time though in that busy schedule to look at how Ireland’s Olympic reputation is being dragged into darker shadows than he or we would ever have imagined.
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