Bombshell reforms for world swimming’s governing body after News Corp exposed FINA’s shame

Swimmers who stood up to FINA’s dictatorial behaviour have been vindicated with the fuse lit to blow up the sport’s governing body and start all over again. SEE THE REFORMS HERE

The long battle to clean up swimming’s poor leadership has finally been won.

After years of running world aquatics with an iron fist, the dinosaurs in charge of the sport’s global governing body FINA have been shown the door.

In a historic announcement in Europe, FINA’s newly appointed reform committee has lit the fuse to blow up the entire organisation and start all over again.

And not before time.

For Mack Horton and all the other competitors who stood up to FINA’s dictatorial behaviour, this is the ultimate vindication of their prolonged fight for a fair go.

It took a two-year investigation by News Corp that exposed FINA’s shameful secrets to the world, but major overdue reforms are now finally coming, including:

• The creation of an independent integrity unit to deal with doping and other violations;

• Modifying the protocols to protect athletes from harassment;

• Changing the sport’s constitution and code of ethics;

• Giving women more opportunities on the male-dominated executive committees;

• Overhauling the sport’s bloated calendar of events;

• More prizemoney for athletes and fewer handouts to officials;

• Empowering athletes to help run the sport; and

• Dumping the FINA name.

Once approved, these changes will hopefully end the days when the likes of China’s Sun Yang can compete while still under investigation for doping offences while FINA attempts to smear the reputations of champion competitors such as Ian Thorpe.

A formal vote on the proposals will take place at an extraordinary general congress in Abu Dhabi in December, but highly-placed sources have told News Corp everything will be rubber-stamped.

FINA “shall not leave a single stone unturned in the way in which it looks to the future”, the reform committee’s chairman Francois Carrard wrote.

“After all, reform is not a single event. It is a process that will test our patience.”

The scathing 20-page report amounts to a formal recognition of FINA’s reprehensible actions over the years.

It confirmed everything that News Corp’s investigations into FINA’s dirty secrets had already revealed – that the 113-year-old ­organisation is riddled with deep-rooted problems, from the way it governs aquatic disciplines to how it sweeps serious integrity complaints under the carpet, mismanages events and mistreats the athletes that generate the sport’s enormous fortunes.

FINA threatened legal action when News Corp this year revealed the eye-watering perks its leaders enjoyed, which topped $9.5m at the 2017 world championship in Budapest, but everything changed the moment Husain Al-Musallam was elected as the new president in June and the clean-up campaign began.

One of the few major sports in the world that has steadfastly refused to allow for external investigations into integrity issues, FINA has finally agreed to establish an aquatics integrity unit.

Completely independent from FINA, the unit will be given the authority to investigate and ­adjudicate on issues such as anti-doping, event manipulation and corruptible offences and ethical violations.

The report also recommended that FINA change its code of ethics and overhaul its constitution so that presidential term limits were limited to a maximum of 12 years.

The report called for an overhaul of the way aquatic sports were marketed and run, including a review of sponsorship and broadcast deals, changes to the event calendar to focus more on “quality over quantity” and staging major events on all five continents rather than sticking to mostly Asia and Europe.

The committee also wants to replace the FINA (Federation internationale de natation) acronym with a more modern identifiable brand name, such as World Aquatics.

Long overdue, the committee has also recommended changes to the protection rules on abuse and harassment as well as the policies of mental health and wellbeing.