AOC election: It’s all about the money

A new Australian Olympic Committee president will be voted in on Saturday – and his first order of business will be a radical funding overhaul.

John Coates is set to hand over the reins as president of the AOC

An era in Australian sport will come to an end late on Saturday morning when Australian Olympic Committee president John Coates hands over the reins to one of two candidates challenging for his position.

For whoever takes over the presidency, it will be all about the money. The main goal for the new leader of the AOC will be to continue the push to radically overhaul the way Australian sport is funded.

As revealed in The Australian on Wednesday AOC chief executive Matt Carroll is at the forefront of lobbying the federal government to change the way sport is financed in Australia, moving away from sports receiving “handouts” and instead tabling “business plans” in order to receive investment.

The two men running to replace Coates as AOC president after a stunning 32-year run, are accomplished businessman Mark Stockwell and long-time AOC official Ian Chesterman. Both are respected candidates for one of the most powerful roles in Australian sport. Both are highly aware that the Olympic movement in Australia as we know it is at a key juncture in an intensely competitive sporting landscape.

While the Brisbane Olympics and Paralympics have been secured for 2032, it’s crucial, with the rise and rise of rugby league, AFL and cricket, that Olympic sports get savvy when it comes to attracting and keeping the next generation of talent.

It’s obvious that with the rise in professionalism of women’s sports — particularly in the AFLW with players now signing six-figure contracts — little girls who once hoped to be Olympians now want to be footy stars.

The AFLW, which is led by former Olympic swimmer and now leading sports administrator Nicole Livingstone, has formally outlined that by 2030 it wants its players to be Australia’s highest-paid sportswomen.

This is where the new funding model proposed by Carroll, and already tabled with the likes of Treasurer Josh Frydenberg, and Labor’s sports spokesman Don Farrell, is crucial.

The new framework aims to holistically fund sport and help counter the talent drain to the big pro sports that could happen as the country hurtles towards a home Olympics in 2032.

So, who’s best to help execute this as president of the AOC?

While Chesterman comes across as the “quiet Tasmanian” behind the scenes, he is anything but. Under immense pressure he was an exemplary leader of a Tokyo Olympic team that won 17 gold medals — equal with the nation’s best previous haul at the 2004 Games in Athens. Chesterman’s selling point for presidency is that he understands the “eco-system of Olympic sport”. He’s been the Chef de Mission of numerous Winter Olympic teams — and he’s expected to have the winter sports votes in the bag. He has also developed strong relationships within government and he is unashamedly an “athlete first” leader.

“He’s a safe pair of hands and we believe he can use the Olympic rings to advocate for funding really well,” one AOC insider said.

Stockwell, the former Olympic swimmer turned property developer, is also a proven leader in sport who has chaired the Australian Sports Foundation and most recently was the chair of the organising committee for the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games.

In an interview with The Weekend Australian recently, the Queenslander warned that “green and gold” Olympic pursuits were losing ground and talent to the cashed-up professional sports. He is clearly very aware of the issue at hand.

“We are becoming a country of consumers and watchers of sport as opposed to a country of participants in sport and that’s why I say we need a participation revolution,” the three-time Olympic medallist said.

“What I want to do is use the Olympic brand, the Olympic rings, to market to mums and dads our suite of 52 Olympic sports and say: ‘This is what we stand for, this is our aspiration for a better person, a better country, a better world — something that is worth more than money’.”

In early April he publicly promised to obtain more funding for the 45 national peak sporting federations and the leading businessman has said one of his first moves would be to establish a national summit to tap into the business community’s “buy in’’.

Stockwell wants the Prime Minister, the premiers, the bosses of Qantas, Wesfarmers, Woolworths, BHP, Rio and other business leaders to be present at the summit. Stockwell says “it’s time for the AOC to make a paradigm shift.’’

Coates — who will remain a vice-president of the International Olympic Committee until 2024, after which he will become the honorary life president of the AOC (a non-voting position) and is a board member of the 2032 Olympic Games organising committee — says he is leaving in a “relaxed” state.

Coates is calm, he says, because of the way the AOC has “evolved” over the past three years and because of Carroll’s competence.

“There’s been a significant shift from the president undertaking executive functions in certain areas in favour of the CEO,” he said.

“And I think it’s a very good legacy the executive leaves really. I’m very relaxed that the AOC is in good hands and that’s what I want. I want the AOC to continue to do well and continue to do everything we’re meant to do. And if you would have observed and you only have to read our annual report to see everything we’re doing now, in the Indigenous area, in schools for Olympics Unleashed, the teams we’re sending away, the fact that we managed to fully fund all of this without governments.

“It’s been a very good executive that I’ve chaired over a long time, but particularly we’ve all had to step back and give more responsibility to the CEO. He’s come through this very well. I’ve got strong confidence in the AOC going forward.”

Coates leaves a legacy of a well-funded and sturdy AOC unlike other sporting organisations, such as Rugby Australia, which squandered a $40 million plus war chest after the departure of former chief executive John O’Neill.

However the AOC have been clever with its funds.

“The words I used to John O‘Neill once in respect of rugby was to make sure it wasn’t pissed up against the wall,” Coates says.

“I cautioned him on that when they were looking at their $48 million from the 2003 World Cup. We started at $100 million in 2000 and it’s now $175 million-$180 million, as the markets go up and down at the moment.

“But we’ve also made distributions to the Australian Olympic Committee of $140 million during that time. That’s a very significant amount, it’s around $30 million a year that the AOC can rely on before they even get into fundraising.”

But despite the clever investment of the AOC funds — its next move will be more crucial than ever as the local Olympic movement looks to strengthen its resolve in a highly competitive sports landscape.

On Saturday, 97 voting delegates will have their say on who will be the best man to guide the organisation into its next phase.