IOC Suspends SportAccord Funding, Membership

(ATR) The IOC will withhold funding from SportAccord until the organization puts its house in order.

The IOC provides $162,000 to SportAccord annually to help fund anti-doping programs for federations. The World Anti-Doping Agency makes a similar contribution. Also cut is another $132,000 the IOC had been providing for other SportAccord functions.

Meeting in Lausanne Sunday, the IOC Executive Board voted to suspend recognition of SportAccord, a move that also cuts the cash to the organization. The suspension came despite the resignation of SportAccord President Marius Vizer, who threw the organization into chaos in April with a speech at the opening of the SportAccord Convention in Sochi.

With IOC President Thomas Bach in the front row, Vizer launched a surprise attack on the IOC, critical of the Olympic Agenda 2020 reforms for which Bach won approval at an IOC Session in December.

Nearly every Olympic sport federation, summer and winter, suspended their affiliation with SportAccord to indicate their opposition to Vizer’s anti-IOC positions.

Vizer resigned as SportAccord president May 31. The remaining leadership of the organization, which is supposed to represent 100 sports federations, is due to meet in Lausanne this week to plot a course post-Vizer, including a new leader.

"We encourage and support them in all the initiatives being taken to restructure their representation following the serious internal problems of SportAccord,"says a statement from the IOC.

In the meantime, the IOC says it will continue to offer "all the services and advice in the fight against doping which so far has been offered by SportAccord and financed by the IOC and WADA.

In other developments, the 15-member EB approved IOC membership for two new members, names to be revealed Monday when the IOC president holds a press conference to close the EB meeting.

The controversy over FIFA was discussed by the EB says spokesman Mark Adams, but no action was needed to be taken by the IOC.

The Monday session of the EB will include reports from upcoming Summer Olympic hosts Rio de Janeiro and Tokyo.

Decisions are expected for the sports program for the 2018 Winter Games in Pyeongchang where mixed gender events in curling and luge and are being proposed by the international federations.

On Tuesday and Wednesday IOC members will meet for presentations from the two cities bidding for the 2022 Olympic Winter Games, Beijing and Almaty. The technical briefing is expected to be attended by 85 of the 101 current members of the IOC. The IOC meets again in Kuala Lumpur July 31 to choose between the two cities.

Written and reported in Lausanne byEd Hula.

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