Olympics boss John Coates’ bid to silence dissent

Bloodletting has begun at the top of the AOC, with president John Coates moving to silence dissenting voices.

Australian Olympic Committee president John Coates.

Bloodletting has begun at the top of the Australian Olympic Committee, with long-serving president John Coates moving to silence dissenting voices on his board and replace them with hand-picked directors.

The Australian understands Coates has moved against Melbourne businessman and sports administrator Andrew Plympton, who has been caught in Australia’s internecine sports war with one foot on the AOC board and another on the board of the Australian Sports Commission.

It is understood that Nicole Livingstone, a three-time Olympian and Swimming Australia director who pointedly questioned Coates in recent board meetings, is also in the president’s sights, with retired swimmer Chris Fydler his preferred option to take her place on the AOC board.

Sailing Australia, the sport which nominated Plympton to the AOC board eight years ago, has been asked by the Coates camp to put forward someone else before the quadrennial board elections at the next AOC annual general meeting. With the meeting still three months away, no decision has been made by sailing or Plympton about his future involvement with the AOC.

Plympton and Livingstone originally joined the AOC with Coates’ support but in recent months have challenged some of his decisions. They and other directors were not consulted before Coates’s attacks against ASC chairman John Wylie and his proposal for closer co-operation between the two organisations.

Coates declined to comment on the boardroom machinations, which will play out amid a bitter public feud between Coates and Wylie, two of the most powerful figures in Australian sport, and Australian Institute of Sport director Matt Favier.

Coates has accused Favier of seeking to undermine his position as AOC president. Favier, who is backed by the ASC, denied the accusation in a lengthy email sent to Coates last week. Coates did not accept his denial. The AOC board unrest also follows an exodus of experienced staff from the Olympic organisation.

Despite consternation within Australian sport over Coates’ public attacks against the ASC during the Rio Olympics, his support for Russia’s participation in Rio after the exposure of its systematic doping regime, the $717,500 consultancy fee he is paid for the previously honorary role of AOC president and the length of his 26-year tenure, there is presently no challenger willing to stand against Coates when he seeks re-election in May.

Unless a challenger emerges, Coates will avoid a ballot for his own position. Since taking over the AOC presidency from Kevan Gosper in 1990, Coates has never faced a contested ballot.

In contrast to the rules governing the IOC, there are no term or age limits for AOC office holders. Coates will be 67 when his current term expires and has publicly stated his intention to stand for a seventh, four-year term.

Coates retains an iron grip on Australia’s Olympic movement, due to the record and reputation he has built over several decades as a sports administrator and his patronage of individual sports.

Under the AOC constitution, all summer and Olympic sports have a vote for board candidates, along with all current members of the AOC executive, the president and vice president of the athletes commission and any Australian IOC members. This gives obscure winter sports like luge and curling equal voting rights to mass participation sports like athletics and swimming. The AOC donates $1 million a year towards the Olympic Winter Institute of Australia, a high performance centre for winter athletes.

If Plympton and Livingstone leave the AOC board and sailing and swimming do not nominate other candidates, Australia’s two most successful sports at the last three Olympics will not have a nominated member on the AOC.