Gemili & Co set to settle sponsor row with bosses

THE heated marketing row that casts a shadow over Team GB’s preparations for the Tokyo Olympics is expected to be resolved next week. Sportsmail understands the group of leading athletes, fronted by Adam Gemili, are finalising the details of a compromise over the Rule 40 dispute with the British Olympic Association after almost four months of discussion. The argument erupted in November when Gemili (below) spoke out in this newspaper about ‘ridiculous’ and ‘unlawful’ marketing restrictions on athletes during the Games. The sprinter was speaking as the head of a group — including Mo Farah, Katarina Johnson-Thompson and Laura Muir — who took the extraordinary step of launching legal action against the team they will represent in Japan. Under the BOA interpretation of the International Olympic Committee’s Rule 40, athletes are limited in how they can engage with their sponsors during the Games. For example, they can only thank a personal sponsor with one tweet during the Olympics, which they argued has a drastic impact on their earning potential and was out of kilter with other nations. The BOA pointed to the need to protect their own sponsorship which, they argued, was essential to cover the £60million cost of supporting Team GB in an Olympic cycle. While the concessions made on each side have been portrayed by one source as nothing seismic, the end to a messy impasse is timely with less than five months until the start of the Olympics. In December, the BOA had said it was ‘dismayed by the legal tactics being conducted in the background, which in no way reflect the spirit of the discussions held’.