Name me a sports administrator at a high level who’s poor? Nope, I can’t think of one either.
It’s no secret that the ‘blazers’ who run sport care far more about themselves than about the athletes, particularly when it comes to cold, hard cash.
FIFA is the gold standard when it comes to the blazers taking absolute liberties but those at the International Olympic Committee (IOC) have always put up a good fight to be top dog when it comes to looking after their own interests.
This week, though, the IOC has excelled itself when it comes to completely mugging off its athletes. It’s removed the mask and has shown itself for the organisation it really is; one that cares far, far more about those in charge than about the people who actually make the Olympics what it is, and who keep the cash rolling in. Namely, the athletes.
We all already know those at the top of sport, more often than not, don’t really care about the athletes. But rarely has this been laid bare in quite the way it has this week.
Kirsty Coventry was elected President of the IOC just over a year ago and the Zimbabwean was billed as something of a breath of fresh air. The organisation’s first woman President, extremely young for the post - she was elected aged just 41 - and a former Olympic athlete herself; hopes were high that she would modernise the IOC. And, given she was taking over from the intensely unlikeable former President, Thomas Bach, it wasn’t unreasonable to assume she’d be more popular than her predecessor. It was, after all, a low bar.
Yet Coventry has scored a quite remarkable own goal this week and has shown herself, even though she was, relatively recently, an elite athlete herself, to hold current athletes in the same contempt as so many of her fellow blazers.
“I don’t believe in paying athletes”, said Coventry confidently to the New Zealand media outlet, Sport Nation NZ.
Read more: How has Parkrun become central in the trans rights v women's rights debate?
Katie Archibald is one in a million, and not just because of her success on her bike
She continued: “I come from a small country, I came from a sport that doesn’t necessarily pay athletes very well, and I still don’t think we should be paying athletes at the Olympic Games.” Sorry, what? You think athletes should dedicate their entire lives to reaching the pinnacle of their sport and then not receive a penny for it?
She went on to clarify her comments, saying doesn’t believe in paying the athletes because, in summary, they’re being given the ‘Olympic experience’.
“Well, they get beautiful venues,” she said of the athletes’ ‘perks’. “They get beautiful villages. They get a beautiful experience. And all of that comes from the money that we (the IOC) raise.”
This is absolutely true. The Olympic experience is, for athletes, in so many ways, truly extraordinary. But most of this feeling is because athletes are fulfilling what is, almost always, a long-held, even lifelong, dream of becoming an Olympian.
I could have been sleeping in a shed for the entirety of the Olympic Games in which I competed and would still have come home saying I loved it, such were the emotions I felt about becoming an Olympian. Yes, the venues are, almost always, excellent and the Olympic village is, on the whole, a joyous place in which to live for the couple of weeks of the Games. But these things cannot, in any way shape or form, be deemed sufficient to replace any kind of financial remuneration given it’s the athletes who, without exception, make the Olympic Games what it is.
It’s hard to make any sense of what Coventry is saying, but the true lunacy of it becomes even more clear when you look a little further into the facts.
The Olympic Games was, upon its inception, an amateur event. Even until relatively recently - 1988 - professional athletes were barred from competing in the Olympics but over the past two decades in particular, the amateur status of the Olympics has been let go of entirely.
What is most galling about Coventry’s comments though, taking into account that the Olympics is definitively not an amateur event any longer, is the contrast of believing Olympic athletes shouldn’t make a penny when the IOC makes not just millions, but billions from the Olympic Games.
The financial figures around the Olympic Games are - almost - unbelievable.
The IOC doesn’t pay a penny for putting on an Olympic Games; all those costs are for the host city to look after. From building and preparing venues and the Athletes’ Village to readying the city itself to arranging security, all these bills are footed by the host city. But this arrangement isn’t because the IOC is poor, far from it. In the most recent four-year summer Olympic cycle, the IOC generated $12 billion. Yes, $12 billion. It’s an eye-watering amount but not particularly surprising given the appeal of the Olympic Games. It is, after all, arguably the most popular and global sporting event on the planet.
This $12 billion isn’t sitting in a savings account, though. The people who run the IOC are taking home literally millions of dollars - the Director General pocketed over $6 million. 16 senior officials took home over half a million dollars each and Coventry herself is reportedly earning over $300,000.
This money is as a direct result of the athletes who compete at the Olympics. Without the athletes, who are the people directly responsible for generating this income of the IOC, the Olympic Games, clearly, doesn’t exist.
Yet Coventry believes they shouldn’t be paid a penny.
No one is suggesting every Olympic athlete should expect to become a millionaire. Not even close. But it doesn’t seem too much to ask to throw a few dollars from the literal billions in the IOC’s bank their way.
The mugging-off of Olympic athletes becomes even more frustrating when you compare their income to footballers. A mid-level professional footballer will earn considerably more than almost every Olympic athlete on the planet. This is despite the fact they are nowhere near as good at their craft as the Olympian.
I get it - football generates crazy money and so it’s only right that its players benefit from this. But Olympic athletes generate a lot of money too and so to pay them absolutely zilch for their efforts is an astonishing slap in the face.
Most Olympic athletes, myself included, are so proud to be at the Olympic Games they’re not immediately looking to be paid for the privilege. But when the athletes and observers take a step back, expecting Olympic athletes to walk away penniless from an Olympic Games isn’t just strange, it’s downright disgraceful and unequivocally has to change sooner rather than later.
