The ASOIF General Assembly debates took place against the background of the highly successful Olympic Games in Beijing in 2008 which underlined the importance of the Games on a global scale and the profile of the International Federations and sports on the Games programme. All the IFs presented their sports to the world in the best possible light to a bigger audience than ever before which will certainly follow through to increased interest in World Championships and other major IF events. The relatively new IF Forum was reported on and the 2009 edition will focus on issues of particular interest to the Olympic IFs many arising from the Beijing experience and the challenges facing sport in the post-Beijing Games era.
The General Assembly considered the post Beijing 2008 Games review which highlighted improvements that can be made and the lessons included the need to work with the Olympic and IF product more between Games to tell the story of the individual athletes and their sports not only once every four years but between Games. There are stars out their in every sport and they all have a story to tell but the challenge for all in the lead up to 2012 is to see how to get that story across to the audience as it unfolds in the run up to the Games in London in 2012. Following the successful 2008 summer Games was once again the linked issue of the distribution of the Olympic Games revenues between the three stakeholders of the IOC, the International Federations and the National Olympic Committees. Review of the disproportionately high USOC revenue share has been a priority for the ASOIF members for several years and, following a unanimously supported resolution from ASOIF to the IOC to give notice to terminate the contract which defines the USOC revenue share, the USOC agreed to address some key issues which mark a first step towards a more equitable distribution.
Reports were received from the organising committee of the London 2012 Games as well as the 1st Youth Olympic Games to be held in Singapore in 2010, on progress with the preparation of those two events. A presentation from WADA on the fight against doping addressed some of the issues of concern for the IFs and they will need to address new challenges such as gambling and irregular betting in sport.
A presentation from the IOC touched on several important issues including the detailed sports programme for the 2012 Games which, although the 26 IFs are already decided, the athlete quotas as well as the disciplines and events for each sport will soon be confirmed by the IOC Executive Board. The process for the selection of a maximum of two new sports to be added to the 2016 Games programme from the seven candidates of Baseball, Golf, Karate, Rollersports, Rugby, Softball and Squash was presented. The final decision will be made at the IOC session in October this year which coincides with the IOC Congress in Copenhagen.
The General Assembly covered many important aspects such as maintaining the autonomy of sport and its governing bodies and convincing governments to respect that autonomy and to regard sport not as simply an economic activity but as having social and political dimensions. This will be a key point of discussion for the 2009 IOC Congress mentioned above. It is important for the IFs to be recognised by public authorities as the bodies that truly govern sport and for business interests in sport to work with the IFs and accept their role as the independent custodians of many of the fundamental aspects of sport.
2009 was an election year for ASOIF and President Denis Oswald (FISA) was re-elected for a further term of four years and the remaining Council members will be joined by the newly-elected members Sergey Bubka (IAAF), Pat McQuaid (UCI), Göran Petterson (ISAF), and Bob Elphinston (FIBA). Pat McQuaid was also elected as Vice-president.
