Preach morality, act immorally

“People go into sports politics because they are ambitious, greedy and love the lifestyle,” said Andrew Jennings, the British journalist who helped to expose corruption in the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

“You can’t imagine the ambitions and the vanity. How else does a ordinary fellow get to meet all the presidents and monarchs in the world?”

Ten IOC members were forced to leave the world’s most important sports organisation three years ago for breaking rules on accepting gifts and favours from Salt Lake City during its successful bid for the 2002 Winter Games.

A series of doping scandals have undermined the credibility of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) and now the head of the world soccer governing body FIFA is under fire.

FIFA President Sepp Blatter, who stands for re-election on May 29, two days before the opening match in the 2002 World Cup, has been accused of corruption by FIFA general secretary Michel Zen-Ruffinen. Blatter responded on Saturday by labelling the accusations as “false and groundless” but the unwelcome publicity given to the charges has threatened to overshadow the build-up to the Cup in Japan and South Korea.

The IOC, facing the biggest corruption scandal in its history, conducted internal reforms, banning members from visiting bidding cities. It also set up an ethics commission to monitor members’ behaviour.

Jennings remains sceptical about the ability of sports organisations to reform themselves.

“The ballot box has spread over the globe, even in the old Russian empire,” he said. “But there has never been a grassroots reform in a sports organisation.” Steven Downes, co-author of “Running Scared. How Athletics Lost Its Innocence”, said membership of an executive board on an international federation guaranteed a round-the-world, first-class travel ticket.

“They stay in the best hotels and they eat in the best restaurants and they see the best sport,” he said. “People are not selected on the grounds of ability. They are selected on the grounds of availability.”

John Boulter, who has been associated with top-level sport for 40 years including a spell as a consultant to the German sports kit firm Adidas, disagreed.

“Nobody gets up in the morning and says ’I will be a sports administrator’,” he said. “They say ’I will play soccer for England. I will run in the Olympic Games’.”

Boulter said sports officials started off at local clubs with no anticipation of monetary rewards.

“It’s very hard to get people to do it. people get interested in sports politics because they want to help the sport,” he says. “People want to put something back in to the sport that they got a lot out of.”

(Reuters)