OCI To Vote on Term Limits

(ATR) An extraordinary general assembly of the Olympic Council of Ireland will meet to vote on instituting term limits for executive board members.

Earlier today the OCI released its strategic plan for the years 2018-24. The plan came from new OCI leadership in the wake of the Patrick Hickey ticketing scandal. Hickey resigned as head of the OCI following his arrest in Rio de Janeiro, although he had planned to not seek re-election when his term ended.

The OCI said in the release that the plan is a more "athlete centered direction" for the organization. Meanwhile the assembly will vote on instituting term limits for positions of executive board members. Starting with elections in 2020 board members would be voted for a four year term and two term limit. A separate proposal would allow for the election of members for one additional term of four years if the board member had stepped away from their position for at least four years. This would limit the maximum time a person could serve on the OCI board to 12 years.

In addition, the assembly will vote on a proposal that would bar anyone who had served for 12 years on the OCI board by 2020 from standing for those elections.

"Later today we hope that members will vote in a number of changes to the OCI constitution that will radically reform how this organization operates," Keane said to press in Ireland today. "We still have some issues to resolve with regard to our Internal Olympic Committee obligations and we will return to these in a separate EGM in January."

The issues with the IOC obligations stem from a clause in the Olympic Charter that requires all IOC members to serve on their country’s Olympic Committee as a voting member. This would mean allowing Hickey to stay on the OCI’s board uninterrupted until the end of his membership, should he choose to, regardless of term limits imposed by the NOC. Hickey had served in the OCI for close to three decades.

An OCI spokesperson confirmed to Around the Rings that the "IOC have been very supportive of the challenges facing the Irish NOC," but the language in the charter is clear. However, the spokesperson confirmed Hickey cannot sit on the board until his self-suspension from the IOC is resolved.

Next Step Ticketing

Sarah Keane said that the OCI will begin looking for a Tokyo 2020 ticket re-seller "in the new year."

The OCI recently dissolved its contract with ticketing agent THG for future Olympic Games. THG had negotiated a ticketing arrangement with Hickey to be the exclusive re-seller for the Olympic Games. The arrangement was at the heart of the Rio 2016 ticketing scandal involving Hickey and THG executives.

"We intend at this juncture to engage another authorized ticket re-seller," Keane told Irish press. "However, right now we are focused on PyeongChang in terms of ticketing arrangements and obviously in terms of supporting the athletes."

Written by Aaron Bauer

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