Coates to ‘let loose’ in sport fight

John Coates comes out swinging, revealing the key issue for the 40 sports that will vote in the AOC election.

John Coates is facing a challenger for his position as AOC president for the first time in 26 years. Picture: Getty Images

Australian Olympic Committee president John Coates has vowed to “let loose’’ in a fight for further funding from the federal government if he is re-elected in Sydney on Saturday.

Mr Coates said he suspected the government would cut sports funding again in Tuesday’s budget and that he was the one who would stand up for sport.

“I have a history of having a go,’’ he said. “Someone has to go out there and fight for the sports.’’

Mr Coates faces a challenger for his position as the AOC supremo for the first time in 26 years and the campaign has played out against the background of a ­funding squeeze for sport that has affected recent Olympic performances.

Mr Coates said his adversary in the AOC election, Olympic hockey gold medallist Danni Roche, was a “puppet’’ for Australian Sports Commission chairman John Wylie, whose main aim was to get his hands on the AOC’s $146 million in resources.

He said the ASC’s better course would have been to use him to agitate for more money from the government.

“They are appointed by ministers to the ASC; I’m not. The AOC is independent,’’ Mr Coates said.

He doubted Ms Roche, who has taken leave from her position as an ASC board member to campaign against Mr Coates, had “the ability and would be prepared to work in an apolitical way to take on government in the way that I have over the years’’.

In a wide-ranging interview, Mr Coates said fears about future government funding was the key issue for the 40 sports that will vote in the AOC election.

On his salary, he said: “I didn’t set the salary.” He explained it had increased substantially when the AOC executive decided to compensate him after he stood down from a $300,000-a-year position as deputy chairman of David Jones to focus on Olympic work.

Mr Coates said the AOC’s new chief executive, Matt Carroll, would now take on some of his executive functions and his salary would be reduced as a result.

“I don’t want to be running this place but I have found I have to (previously),’’ he said.

On governance, he said all staff would report to Mr Carroll in future because he had “confidence in him’’. He made it clear he had not had the same confidence in former chief executive Fiona De Jong, who left last year and has since claimed there was a culture of bullying in the AOC office.

He said some of the complaints raised by Ms De Jong were dealt with by her and had never reached him. However, he said the bullying issue had resonated with the sports and he had to defend himself in meetings with the national sports federations.

On the dispute between Ms De Jong and media director Mike Tancred, who has stood down pending an investigation, Mr Coates said it had escalated after Ms De Jong accused Olympic team chef de mission Kitty Chiller of telling people she (Ms De Jong) was leaking information to a journalist.

Mr Coates pointed to his record of extracting money from government for sport, saying he was ­responsible for securing $55m of the $118m the federal government distributes to the sports each year through successful negotiations with various sports ministers over the past 26 years.

He revealed that as part of the deal he made with former Labor sports minister Kate Ellis in late 2009 for more funding, he agreed not to complain in future

However, he said he no longer felt bound by that agreement.

Ms Roche has taken a different approach to the funding issue, arguing Mr Coates’s $700,000 salary and other administrative savings at the AOC could return $3m to the sports over the next four years. She also argues that the AOC does not distribute enough of its earnings to sport.

Of the $41m the AOC raised last financial year, it spent $20m equipping and sending the Olympic team to Rio and $2.7m on other programs that delivered money directly to the sports (including $1m to the Olympic Winter Institute, which is a quarter of its funding). None of this was funded by the taxpayer.

The AOC has not sought government funding for itself since 2001, when it received an $88m windfall from the Sydney Olympics that it has turned into a $146m nest egg. The investment profits are used to fund its programs.

Mr Coates said the AOC’s primary funding responsibility was to send Australian teams to eight different international events every four years — including the Summer and Winter Olympics, Youth Olympics and various Asian and Pacific games. He said the AOC paid for about 1100 athletes and ­officials to attend these inter­national competitions.

He acknowledged it was important for Australian sport to get ­beyond his feud with Mr Wylie and for the AOC and ASC to have a good working relationship and said he thought this could be achieved through the intervention of Mr Carroll, who started work at the AOC this week, and ASC chief executive Kate Palmer.