A critical time for Olympic and Paralympic sailing

by Rob Kothe & the Sail-World team on 16 Feb 2015 While the rights and wrongs of the IFDS submission to IPC are being debated, what is clear is the IFDS submission did not persuade the Paralympic Games decision makers that sailing deserved a place in Tokyo 2020.

The reality is unpleasant but dropping the ball with the IPC for 2020 could cost our sailing sport very dearly in the longer term.

Infrastructure costs will no longer be shared across the Olympic and Paralympics - making us even more expensive as an Olympic sport.

Does it matter if sailing is an Olympic sport? That might be subject for debate but remember 65% of ISAF revenue will go if sailing is dropped.

Since the IPC decision to remove sailing from the Paralympic roster, there has been lots of noise, but a notable absence of a coordinated ISAF approach involving MNAs and National Paralympic Committee to try and reverse the decision.

Action needs to start yesterday to impact 2020 and where is the leadership that's going to drive it?

The ISAF Executive structure is not designed for fast decision making and Presidents and Vice Presidents need a strong CEO to make things happen.

Sadly in the short term leadership will not come from the ISAF Secretariat, because there is a vacancy at the top.

ISAF are now recruiting for a Chief Executive Officer, who will replace Jerome Pels who resigned in October after 17 years with ISAF, the last six of those as CEO.

This is a challenging and extremely important position as most sailors including some influential members of the ISAF executive will freely admit, our peak body is in serious need of restructuring.

The dynamics of ISAF decision making cannot be just described, it has to be experienced. The wobbling jelly that is ISAF is pushed and pulled by a submission driven system of change and the lack of an overall visible strategic plan are just part of the less than world class governance that have to be rapidly addressed.

Over the last six years there has been some improvement in decision making processes but not nearly enough and the overall poor governance structure has to be rebuilt.The poor decision making processes that allowed in November 2008 the ISAF Council to throw out multihulls for Olympics 2012 can still pop up.

Time is critical, a new ISAF Chief Executive from outside the sport is going to take at least a year to get up to speed and that is time we don’t have.

To make matters worse, it seems that the salary package being offered for this position is not as competitive as it could be. If CEO's of many national sports bodies around the world would have to take a pay cut to head up Sailing's international peak body, it’s fair to say that limits the talent pool.

So will the next ISAF CEO be the best and brightest leader sailing needs or someone who will work for the salary?

We hope we have the best and brightest but not much about ISAF inspires confidence at this critical time.