(ATR) SportAccord President Patrick Baumann tells Around the Rings he expects the organization to mend its severed ties with Olympic organizations by the end of the year.
"There has been… maybe a little bit too many things that have been done and probably in a way that got perceived as an organization that could create problems to other stakeholders in the world of sport," Baumann confides to ATR Editor Ed Hula in an exclusive interview on the sidelines of the SportAccord Convention in Denmark.
Baumann, elected to lead SportAccord at the 2016 Convention, says the rift that was caused in part by his predecessor Marius Vizer should be rectified with the organization's new direction for the future.
"We’re now trying to bring it back to the basics of what [SportAccord] really is," Baumann says. "It’s an organization in which we’re also creating lasting bonds of friendship between the members, exchanging know-how between all of them and somehow helping sport in society. This has not changed; it should still be the core of what this organization is about tomorrow."
Baumann tells ATR that the federations that left SportAccord following Vizer’s outbursts in 2015 will all return by the beginning of 2018. The International Federations of Shooting Sport and Rowing have already ended their suspensions, the International Paralympic Committee will rejoin in the summer along with the International Golf Federation.
The most notable IF that remains out of SportAccord is the International Association of Athletics Federations led by Sebastian Coe. Baumann says Coe’s election to the ASOIF Council on April 4 is a positive step in regaining one of the most prominent sports in the Olympic Movement as a SportAccord member.
SportAccord members will vote on the proposal to change the organization’s name back to the Global Association of International Sport Federations (GAISF) in a move Baumann says is another example of the organization ‘going back to the future’ and distancing itself from the decisions that led to a divided membership.
Baumann also discusses plans for the next SportAccord Conventions, his role as the chairman of the 2024 Olympic Evaluation Commission and the next steps for the Sion 2026 Winter Olympic bid in his home country of Switzerland.
Listen to the exclusive interview with Baumann and Hula below:
Written by Kevin Nutley
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