Ric Charlesworth questions Canberra’s anti-Coates campaign

Former Olympic coach Ric Charlesworth has questioned the federal government’s role in the campaign to oust John Coates.

AOC president John Coates shakes hands with challenger Danni Roche on Saturday.

Olympic gold medal-winning coach Ric Charlesworth has questioned the federal government’s role in the campaign to oust John Coates from the presidency of the Australian Olympic Committee.

After winning the election ­decisively on Saturday 58 votes to 35, Coates said he would make no recriminations for the bitter ­election campaign, but some of his supporters are less forgiving.

Charlesworth said he believed that members of the government had intervened in the election campaign for an independent ­organisation inappropriately. He said the reappointment of Australian Sports Commission chairman John Wylie (who is feuding with Coates) before the AOC vote was “provocative’’.

“They were clearly spruiking for one side and the reappointment of Wylie was part of that,’’ he said. “Government ministers jumped on Coates whenever they could and the Prime Minister was out there saying what a wonderful human being (challenger) Danni (Roche) was,’’ he said.

Charlesworth decried the ­vindictiveness of the campaign against Coates and said it was about extracting money from the AOC to offset government cuts in sports funding, expected to deepen in tomorrow’s budget.

Former AOC vice-president Geoff Henke, the godfather of Australian winter sport, is another who finds it hard to forgive those who sought to bring down Coates by public vilification. He described it as an “onslaught’’. “I believe the personal attack on John Coates has backfired and the majority of sports have reacted against this unprecedented, expensive persecution,’’ he said after the ballot.

Coates, who has been president of the AOC for 26 years and will now rule for another four before stepping down in 2021, has proved to be the great survivor of Australian sport. He has once again outwitted and outlasted his opponents, centred in the Melbourne establishment, and many with links into the Liberal Party.

While Roche’s supporters played the man, Coates never took his eye off the main game: winning the support of most of the 40 Olympic sports, not only for him, but for his preferred ticket of ­candidates.

After his re-election was ­confirmed on Saturday, his preferred vice-presidents, Winter Olympics chef de mission Ian Chesterman and NSW Olympic Council president Helen Brownlee, were also elected, leaving his chief critic on the board, former Australian ­sailing president Andrew Plympton, out in the cold.

The next five board members elected were all from his ticket. In each round of voting, the majority block supporting Coates swung to the next candidate on his list, in alphabetical order.

Sailing Australia president Matt Allen, Athletics Australia president Mark Arbib, Volleyball Australia president Craig Carracher, Rio Olympic chef de mission Kitty Chiller and fencing president Evelyn Halls were all confirmed in quick succession.

The voting discipline broke down only when widely respected swimming representative Nicole Livingstone (a Coates critic) took the sixth seat, while Diving Australia president Michael Murphy (an independent) took the final place. At the end of the process, two of Coates’ three critics on the board, Plympton and former Canoeing Australia president Danielle Woodward, had been removed. Only Livingstone remains.

Coates has the board he wanted, but he has also committed to some of the changes in governance structure and operation that Roche championed.

AOC Athletes Commission chairman Steve Hooker, also on the board, said the ­athletes would hold him to those promises, which include stepping back from most executive roles and taking a ­commensurate pay cut.

In the end, the sports got what they wanted — a shake-up inside the AOC that did not cost them a president who is regarded as one of the world’s most influential sports administrators. After the election, sports leaders moved quickly to begin mending the fractures in their ranks. Swimming and hockey were the two sports that most publicly backed Roche’s campaign but both insisted they could work well with Coates.

Swimming Australia president John Bertrand predicted the sports would “come together’’ after a “tough’’ election process. “I’m very happy that Nicole got up, that’s very important from a Swimming Australia perspective, and I think the reality is that Danni achieved roughly a third of the votes so that’s a real wake-up call for the AOC which is very healthy, so I’m satisfied from that point of view.”

Hockey Australia president Melanie Woosnam said her sport would support Coates and the new executive. “We’re really keen to see some change occur now in the AOC with greater transparency and good governance practices,’’ she said.

Coates vows to begin repairing his relationship with Wylie and the ASC. He will call him after he returns from Olympic meetings in Lausanne next week.

Coates said he would support Wylie’s push for a sports lottery to provide more funding to sport.