War against John Coates didn’t matter

AOC President John Coates after the results of the ballot were announced. Picture: Getty

When it became obvious six or seven weeks ago that John Coates would be opposed for the Presidency of the AOC, I asked him how he thought it would turn out. He replied that he believed he had 61 votes.

In the intervening period, Coates was subjected to a campaign the like of which had never been seen in Australian sport. In the press the space allocated to Danni Roche ran at a ratio of ten to one. If an athlete of modest achievement came out against Coates then the front page or at a minimum any amount of space would be allocated. I wonder how many people even know that Cathy Freeman and Ian Thorpe came out strongly in support of John Coates. They were virtually ignored by our newspapers, radio and television as coverage was continually given to the anti-Coates forces.

Danni Roche’s press coverage ran at a ratio of ten to one. Picture: AFP

For all of the publicity showered on Roche, for all the bile poured over Coates, the main media and the commentariat did not understand how human beings respond in those circumstances. Delegates to the AOC have witnessed Coates at close quarters in some cases for a decade or more. It simply did not matter what garbage was peddled in the media. Up close and personal, they knew how competently Coates had handled the Presidency. They knew how much he had done for so many sports. They knew having the Vice Presidency of the ICO gave Australia clout way beyond what its numbers would have suggested. They knew that only John Coates could have delivered the Olympics to Sydney.

Because of all of that mentioned above, this huge vicious campaign which has no doubt damaged Coates’ reputation outside the Olympic movement and caused dissension in the previously peaceful AOC in Australia was all for very little. Coates received 58 votes so all that was achieved by this campaign was three votes – three lousy votes. The claims Roche had been making and which were largely accepted as gospel truth by the media, that there was only one vote in it, were shown to be nonsense. Roche and her backers spent a fortune, created an unnecessary and unwanted drama, and came up with nothing.

A group of Melbourne businessman funded a Melbourne PR firm to get Roche more positive publicity and bucket Coates. There are quite a few journalists who have just become lazy enough to regurgitate the material sent to them. Hundreds of thousands of dollars to win three votes would not get a pass mark in a cost-benefit analysis. Nothing was too low in this effort and an article in Sydney’s Sun-Herald suggested Coates may have committed some kind of fraud. Coates and one of his associates are taking legal action over this allegation but this never really wipes off the stain left by this kind of slur.

Coates is no weakling so he will survive. I have often said over the last quarter of a century that the two toughest guys I have ever known are John Coates and my colleague in the Senate in my political career, Robert Ray. Despite the best efforts of others, Coates is here to stay for four more years.