ASOIF Tribute to Baumann; New Governance Monitoring Unit

(ATR) Summer Olympic leaders on Friday paid tribute to former IOC member and basketball chief Patrick Baumann, who died from a heart attack at the Youth Olympics last month.

At today’s meeting of the ASOIF Council in Lausanne, president Francesco Ricci Bitti spoke about Baumann’s "humor, generosity, friendship and outstanding contributions to sport and the Olympic Movement".

The council held a moment of remembrance at the meeting, and the members attended a memorial service for Baumann at the Cathedral of Notre Dame Lausanne after the meeting.

Joining Baumann's family at the service to celebrate his life were: a FIBA delegation consisting of executives and staff from its headquarters, regional offices and FIBA partners; IOC colleagues; officials from the Global Association of International Sports Federations and the Lausanne 2020 Winter Youth Olympics organizing committee – bodies of which Baumann was president.

IOC president Thomas Bach, FIBA chief Horacio Muratore and Lausanne Mayor Grégoire Junod were among those who gave emotional speeches honoring Baumann.

Friday’s ASOIF meeting was inevitably overshadowed by the sudden death in Buenos Aires of Baumann, who also had a seat on the council.

The key discussion point was the work of the Association of Summer Olympic International Federations governance task force. In the fall-out from the mismanagement and corruption problems that have plagued IAAF, FIFA and AIBA in the past couple of years, improving IF governance has been the priority of ASOIF leaders in 2018.

Governance issues among the summer Olympic sports topped the agenda of the ASOIF general assembly in April. At the Bangkok meeting, ASOIF’s top officials warned their 33 member sports federation they had two years to improve governance or face being named and shamed. It followed a second review of ASOIF members governance.

Governance Watchdog

Seven months after the Bangkok general assembly, ASOIF has finally got its new governance watchdog up and running.

"A new Governance Support and Monitoring Unit is now operational in a strive to help international federations steer towards better governance by 2020," said an ASOIF statement issued Friday after the council meeting.

Members of the governance watchdog, chaired by Ricci Bitti and including three external experts, gathered for the first time last week. It aims to help IFs "evolve from the adoption of principles and rules to tangible performances in good governance", ASOIF said.

"Our unit will be very pragmatic and focus on recommending concrete action, especially to IFs having difficulties introducing governance reforms," said Ricci Bitti.

"We will share with them best practice and offer solutions customised to their size, resources and context."

Nearly three years into its governance project, the data presented in Bangkok following the second assessment of IFS demonstrated that progress had been made. But ASOIF leaders say "there remains much more to do in order to tackle some huge variations in IF governance".

ASOIF hopes the new governance unit will help to close some of these gaps. Its ambition is to see at least 26 of the 28 full ASOIF members score 120 out of a maximum of 200 or more in the governance assessment by April 2020.

On Friday, council members were also updated on another ongoing ASOIF project. ‘The Future of Global Sport’ looks at the speed of change impacting sport from political, social, technological and economic influences.

The objective is to enable IFs to have an adequate understanding of what the future may look like when they take decisions with long-term impacts. ASOIF interviewed officials from the government sector, the business world and sport organisations.

The initiative also examines the evolving role of IFs and will draw up recommendations on how IFs can remain fit for purpose. ASOIF aims to publish the full report in early 2019.

The ASOIF Council also acknowledged the success of the third edition of the Summer Youth Olympics held last month in Buenos Aires.

Members agreed that operations went smoothly, the atmosphere was very friendly with good crowds watching the competitions and that the Urban Park concept "proved to be an outstanding success".

There were also updates on preparations for the Tokyo 2020 and Paris 2024 Olympics. No major concerns were raised less than two years until the Games in the Japanese capital.

The next ASOIF Council meeting takes place in Lausanne in February.

Reported by Mark Bisson

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