International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Jacques Rogge leaves after a news conference during the IOC Executive Board meeting, part of the annual SportAccord convention, in St. Petersburg, yesterday.
ST PETERSBURG, Russia: The successor to International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Jacques Rogge will remain an unpaid volunteer after all six presidential hopefuls turned down the idea of a salary, Rogge said yesterday.
Rogge, who steps down in September after 12 years in charge, had recently suggested that the IOC Presidency should be a paid position as the duties of leading the world’s biggest multi-sports organisation amounted to a full-time job.
Six candidates have stepped forward to succeed the Belgian with elections set for September 10 at the IOC session in Buenos Aires.
“We discussed the issue of remuneration and I explained why I launched the idea,” Rogge told reporters after an executive board meeting. There could be a circumstance that the candidate is of a young age and would have to take care of his family,” Rogge, a surgeon by profession, said.
“All six of them said they did not want to be remunerated, so that settles the matter for these elections.”
IOC Vice Presidents Thomas Bach of Germany and Singaporean Ng Ser Miang are running for the top job, along with Puerto Rican Richard Carrion, who heads the IOC finance commission, former Olympic pole vault champion Sergei Bubka, international boxing federation chief C.K. Wu and rowing chief Denis Oswald.
“I am definitely in my last stretch (of the presidency) and I can see the finish line and the ribbon which says September 10,” Rogge said.
“I hope to cross it in good shape...and that I will have fulfilled my duty. I have no concerns. I rejoice that any of the six would be very good presidents,” he added.
The executive board agreed yesterday to allow candidates to present their plans to IOC members on the sidelines of a session in Lausanne in July, before the vote in September.
“There will be a presentation of the six candidates. “There they will present their manifesto to the members,” Rogge said.
Meanwhile, A plan by the newly-elected head of an umbrella sports body for a United World Championships every four years is not a good idea because of the already congested sports calendar, the IOC said.
International Judo Federation boss Marius Vizer, who was elected president of SportAccord, an organisation of Olympic and non-Olympic federations, on Friday, said the new event was not planned as a rival to the Olympic Games.
“They (the IOC) don’t have to be worried because it’s a different event with a different background, a different strategy,” he said. “We will do everything in partnership and in agreement with all international sports organisations.”
The plan is for the event to take place every four years, with the first edition in 2017.
“The event will be organised in a country and events divided in different cities and different regions according to the infrastructure and different facilities necessary to every sport - of course in a period convenient for all international federations,” Romanian-born Vizer, an Austrian citizen, said after his election.
However, Rogge rejected the idea.
“I am nearing the level of my irrelevance but it contradicts with the opinion of ASOIF (Association of Summer Olympic International Federations),” said Rogge, who is stepping down after 12 years in September.
“ASOIF 10 days ago came up with a declaration that the international programme is already too congested and that there are too many events,” Rogge said.
“So this is something that has to be discussed not only between the IOC and SportAccord but also within SportAccord itself.”
An already busy international sports year will have one more event in 2015 with European Olympic Committees preparing the inaugural European Games to be held in Baku, Azerbaijan.
REUTERS
