Pat Hickey entitled to remain on OCI executive committee

Former Olympic Council of Ireland (OCI) president Pat Hickey will still be entitled to both a vote and seat on the new executive committee no matter what transpires at next month’s extraordinary general meeting in Dublin.

Nominations for the 12-person executive committee, including the role of president, have now closed ahead of the scheduled meeting at the Conrad Hotel in Dublin on Thursday, February 9th; Hickey has already made clear his intentions not to seek re-election for what would have been an eighth four-year term in the role he has held since 1989.

There are now only three nominations for the role of OCI president up to Tokyo 2020: acting OCI president Willie O’Brien, who took over in August after Hickey stepped aside, pending the outcome of the ticket-touting charges during the Rio Games; Swim Ireland CEO and current OCI executive member Sarah Keane; and Bernard O’Byrne, former CEO of the FAI and currently CEO of Basketball Ireland.

However, according to articles of the association, as adopted in September 2005, Hickey is still entitled to both a vote and seat on the executive, given his role within the International Olympic Committee (IOC): Hickey was first voted onto the IOC membership in 1995, then elected onto the executive committee in 2012, a position he is entitled to hold until the age of 80.

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Now aged 71, Hickey also temporarily stepped aside from his IOC position pending the outcome of those ticket-touting charges, repeatedly declaring his innocence of all charges, and expressing his determination to clear his name.

Presumption of innocence

The IOC has also commented on his status, IOC president Thomas Bach saying “for us, it is very clear that the presumption of innocence prevails”, while ANOC, the official affiliation of the current 206 national Olympic committees (NOCs), put up the €410,000 bail bond demanded by the Rio court in order for Hickey to be given back his passport on medical grounds in November, which allowed him to return to Ireland last month.

Article number 11, on voting membership (11.2.1), states that the OCI voting membership shall comprise “the IOC member(s) in Ireland (excluding honorary IOC members)”, along with the president, other officers and members of the executive committee, and representations of the national federations.

In addition, article 15, which covers the membership of the executive committee, also includes “the IOC member(s) in Ireland” (15.2.1), again in addition to the five officers, seven other executive members, as well as the chairman of the OCI athletes commission.

Against that backdrop, however, comes the 19 key recommendations of the Deloitte report, commissioned by the OCI in light of the Rio ticket controversy, one of which was unambiguous in limiting terms for all executive committee members, including officers, to “two four-year terms”.

It’s still unclear what, if any, recommendations will be adopted by the OCI, and how they will impact on the articles of the association, including the one which potentially allows for Hickey’s role up to 2026, should he remain on the IOC committee for that long.

Existing members

In the meantime several existing members of the executive committee have already lined themselves up for re-election, including current honorary general secretary Dermot Henihan, as well as boxer Darren O’Neill, who is also entitled to put himself forward as an existing member, given his role as the athletes’ commission representative.

There are some fresh faces too, however, with Sarah O’Shea, former deputy CEO of the FAI, also nominated for the position of honorary general secretary; PJ Nolan, former president of Cycling Ireland, has also been nominated by his federation, and Athletics Ireland also confirmed that their current president, Georgina Drumm, will be going forward for a position on the executive committee.

The existing committee members who aren’t going forward for re-election include Sonia O’Sullivan, who outlined some of her frustrations in the role in her column in this newspaper last Thursday, and also the three executive committee members who resigned their position in the aftermath of the ticket-touting controversy – second vice-president John Delaney, honorary treasurer Kevin Kilty, and Ciarán Ó Catháin.

Ó Catháin, along with Sarah Keane, was part of the original three-person crisis management committee set up in the immediate aftermath of Hickey’s arrest in Rio on those ticket-touting charges. That subsequently caused a rift in the OCI, when in November Keane and the other two members openly contested a letter, penned by Henihan, which attributed the brunt of the spiralling legal and expenditure costs related to the Rio ticketing scandal – now known to exceed €1 million – to that crisis management committee.

Next month’s elections may well be decided on the willingness to either repair or to sustain that rift.