{"id":436091,"date":"2020-06-17T03:15:08","date_gmt":"2020-06-17T10:15:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/?p=436091"},"modified":"2020-06-17T05:39:16","modified_gmt":"2020-06-17T12:39:16","slug":"fina-sinks-to-bottom-of-league-on-olympic-governance-with-weightlifting-judo-fed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/fina-sinks-to-bottom-of-league-on-olympic-governance-with-weightlifting-judo-fed\/","title":{"rendered":"FINA Sinks To Bottom Of League On Olympic Governance With Weightlifting & Judo Feds"},"content":{"rendered":"

A review of Olympic Governance<\/strong> among international sports bodies has found none had equal representation of women on their ruling boards, while FINA<\/strong> is one of three Olympic sports federations out of 27 core summer Olympic disciplines, with weightlifting and Judo, to fall shy of a points threshold designed to measure progress.<\/p>\n

The findings focus on a deep gender inequality that prevails in the structures of Olympic governance, including FINA<\/a>, where the executive is all-male, men account for almost 70% of the 300 positions from board to basic committees and a third of all decision-making groups in aquatic sports are women-free zones.<\/p>\n

The Third Review of International Federation Governance <\/strong>by the\u00a0Association of Summer Olympic International Federations<\/strong> places FINA in a C Group of sports federations that do not stack up well on a wide range of governance issues described in the review report.<\/p>\n

FINA also falls down on one of the key aims of the Association of Summer Olympic International Federations<\/strong>: integrity. While World Athletics<\/strong><\/a> has now facilitated the establishment of an\u00a0independent Athletics\u00a0Integrity Unit<\/strong>,<\/a> FINA relies yet on an Ethics Panel<\/strong>\u00a0selected by the FINA leadership, therefore lacking in independence, and not allowed to hear any case it chooses, under rules that give the FINA executive control over the complaints process.<\/p>\n

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Francesco Ricci Bitti<\/strong>, ASOIF President, notes in his opening remarks to the survey<\/b>:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“We know well that when one sport is involved in controversy, it affects us all. We must therefore strengthen the integrity and credibility of our organisations and push ourselves to address both existing challenges and emerging topics. We need to maintain our collective focus and ASOIF is ready to play its part. Our mission is to protect and defend the common interests of ASOIF\u2019s members and to provide added value to the wider Sport and Olympic Movement.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The Gender Gap<\/h2>\n

Among key issues in the survey is a gender gap that is closing all too slowly. In the survey, men were able to stay in high office – mostly in well-recompensed voluntary positions – because more than one-quarter of governing bodies have no term limits for presidents and other elected officials.<\/p>\n

The survey of 31 sports on the Tokyo 2020 Olympic program, conducted by the ASOIF, revealed that only one of the 31 sports achieved more than 40% of women on its board, and 18 had female representation of 25% or less.<\/p>\n