Greatest challenge for Keane is making OCI matter
Incoming president must ensure Olympic body is relevant to athletes
RESOUNDING count announcements rose from the top table and some stupefying comments about the old order peppered the air like musket shot. But one question tugged the focus back towards reality as incessantly as gravity: does any of this matter?
Conversations with enough athletes over months and years had left one with a very definite impression of the Olympic Council of Ireland. They felt it was a body with no role in their preparation for the Games.
Instead, it dealt with the logistics of their trips to the Olympics, liaising with them in matters of accreditation, flights and apparel. They saw it as a grand-sounding, rather selfimportant secretariat and nothing much more than that.
The public profile of the OCI was inseparable from that of its longstanding president, Pat Hickey, and the circumstances of his departure turned a remote organisation into a soap opera set.
That was why 40 journalists were in the Conrad Hotel in central Dublin on Thursday night. It was not because the OCI is viewed as a body central to the operation of elite sport in this country.
Beyond the limits of its own drama, did any of it matter?
Of course it did, and for some obvious reasons. The most immediate is that the OCI is in receipt of millions of euro of taxpayers’ money, totalling almost €1.6 million in the cycle up to the Rio Olympics.
It matters because there is tremendous potential to thrive among elite athletes across various disciplines in this country, and the OCI can help facilitate that.
Then there is the continuing power of the Olympic Games. Its reputation is tattered and the glory of past years is tainted, but it remains the most popular sporting event in the world. But the OCI was not associated with such promise or virtues, and following the events in Rio last August, it was difficult to imagine it being spoken of in terms of best practice or high achievement for a long time.
As the clocks dragged themselves towards midnight on Thursday, however, the OCI started to look more relevant.
Sarah Keane talked about making the OCI more meaningful in the lives of athletes, and it was possible to conceive of it having a practical impact on elite sport beyond distributing economy-class air tickets and singlets.
The new president did not submit herself to interviews, beyond a brief address and exchange in the lobby outside the room where her resounding victory had occurred. She preferred to keep her talking for the new OCI committee, which was due to speak by conference call on Friday morning. Even as she becomes accustomed to the role, it is difficult to imagine Keane ever doing much by way of public pronouncement. This will be only one of the ways in which her presidency differs from the long, long reign of the garrulous Hickey. She is a serious-looking character, and those who know her speak of a serious high achiever. Watching her on Thursday, her desire to stop talking and start working was palpable. Change is inevitable, and the extent of transformation in the OCI as a result of Thursday’s election means it promises to be swift. Keane will be assisted by a new executive with some significant new figures. The incoming first vice-president, for instance, is Colm Barrington. Sailing is his sport but he is better known from his professional career, in which he served as the chief executive of Aer Lingus.
The new honorary general secretary is Sarah O’Shea, once the deputy CEO of the FAI and one of the consultants engaged by the Irish Athletic Boxing Association to produce its latest strategic plan.
Just one figure from the old order held on, with Hickey loyalist William Kennedy remaining as honorary treasurer. The post was not contested.
What happened on Thursday is already, inevitably, being called the night of the long knives, but this was coming since last August. And there was no concealment: change was predicted but as the election drew nearer, with wobbling confidence.
One figure close to the election told this newspaper two weeks ago he expected Willie O’Brien and Keane could confidently expect a core support of about a dozen votes each. Thereafter, it would come down to whose message convinced the electorate best.
That was prescient. O’Brien ended up with 12 votes, but the 29 that followed Keane give her an irrefutable mandate.
And that was not a given. As part of their report into the OCI, consultants Deloitte asked the 34 constituent sporting federations to complete an online survey. Only 23 of them did, and this at a time when the OCI and its issues was urgent news.
Apathy was a very great danger to a change candidate like Keane, but she combatted that with a message that was convincing. She eschewed almost all media requests, concentrating on getting herself elected instead. That was smart business.
As tributes to Hickey rang through the Conrad on Thursday night, one wondered if there was enough plain gumption in the room to back her. Dermot Henihan, Hickey ally, longstanding general secretary and a defeated candidate for the same role this time, delivered the longest and most passionate tribute to the departed president.
‘Pat is a loyal and good friend to the OCI, to you the national federations, and will be sadly missed as the guiding light and president of the OCI,’ was one of Henihan’s choicest comments.
But those who would have mourned his departure most keenly then joined him on the outside, looking in as change – remarkably, finally, decisively – visits the OCI.