Games boycott threats

How major crisis was averted in world swimming

SWIMMING’S world governing body was so hellbent on retaining its iron grip on the sport that it was prepared to enforce its outrageous threat to ban competitors from next year’s Olympics if they joined a professional league.

It was only through the intervention of a Swiss lawyer, with close ties to the International Olympic Committee, that a major crisis was averted.

It is understood FINA’s strongman leaders were planning to ignore the desperate pleas from swimmers and impose long bans on competitors and national federations that joined the rebels until they were warned they were in breach of anti-trust laws.

In January, FINA issued a statement saying swimmers would not be punished if they competed in the International Swimming League (ISL) but the matter is far from resolved after ISL and disgruntled swimmers filed separate lawsuits in a Californian court.

ISL boss Konstantin Grigorishin said FINA had initially supported his plans to create a professional league but withdrew their support when he refused to meet their demands of a $71 million payment fee.

“When FINA people approached me and suggest to meet each other I was curious and I was really optimistic that FINA would give us a lot of support because I consider I had a great idea and we have great support from the best swimmers,” Grigorishin said.

“But quite soon I recognised that FINA is strongly against this and now I understand why because FINA, like other federations, is a very bureaucratic and political organisation.

“It’s not a business entity, it’s not for the athletes, it’s more for themselves.”

Neither case has been heard yet and Grigorishin, a selfmade billionaire and swimming fan, expects FINA will settle before they ever get to court, though he can’t see them working together in the future.

“My personal view is that international federations should be the regulators of sport but not organising the competitions because if you are regulating something you cannot be the beneficiary of something,” he said.

“It’s not our target or our goal to fight with FINA. We’re a positive project, we would like to create some additional value, not to destroy some value.

“We’re quite sure we will win litigation but if they want to approach us and make some settlement this is OK.”