‘Crazy’ to dump John Coates from Olympic role: ex-SOCOG board member

The IOC is concerned at infighting that is seeing a ‘smear campaign’ against AOC president John Coates.

The International Olympic Committee­ was concerned by the bitter in-fighting within Aust­ralian sports administration and a “smear campaign” against Aust­ralian Olympic Committee presid­ent John Coates, says a former AOC secretary-general.

Craig McLatchey, now a sports consultant in the Olympic capital of Lausanne, Switzerland, said IOC executives did not understand “what has been a very aggressive smear campaign” against the long-time AOC president.

He said IOC executives saw the public in-fighting as dam­aging to Australia’s interests in inter­national sporting circles, particularly because of Mr Coates’s key role in overseeing organisation of the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo.

“From the discussions I have had at IOC headquarters, senior IOC managers are mystified at the nature of the ­campaign against John Coates,” Mr McLatchey said.

“While they understand there are local circumstances, they don’t see what has been a very ­aggressive smear campaign being very good for the AOC at all.

“They see it as being considerably damaging.”

Mr McLatchey, who moved to Switzerland after the Sydney Olympics to set up Event Knowledge Services, said Australia would be “crazy” to dump Mr Coates, head of the IOC Co-ordin­ation Commission and a key player in Tokyo 2020 preparations.

A former member of the Sydney­ Olympic organising committee, Mr McLatchey said Mr Coates deserved one more term as AOC president, to take the organisation into Tokyo and to oversee an orderly transition of the organisation’s leadership.

Mr Coates, the AOC president since 1990, is being challenged by Olympic hockey gold medallist Danni Roche.

The outcome will be decided at the committee’s annual meeting in Sydney on Saturday.

The former head of the Sydney Olympic bidding committee, Rod McGeoch, who was also a Sydney organising committee board member, declined to comment on the presidency contest, or indicate a preference, when ­he was approache­d by The Australian at the weekend.

Former IOC member Phil Coles, who fell out with Mr Coates in the lead-up to the Sydney Olympics, also refused to comment­ on the situation.