By David Owen
November 19 – There was potentially good news for one senior FIFA figure in a strategic roadmap for the future of the Olympic Movement unveiled with a flourish in the Olympic capital of Lausanne on Tuesday. But not so, apparently, for another.
The 37th of 40 recommendations to be discussed and voted on by the full International Olympic Committee (IOC) membership in Monaco next month concerns the age limit for IOC members.
Whereas at present the retirement date for most members is set at the end of the calendar year in which their 70th birthday falls, recommendation 37 – if approved – would introduce some flexibility. The proposal would permit a “one-time extension of an IOC member’s term of office for a maximum of four years, beyond the current age limit of 70”. This extension would be limited to “a maximum of five cases at a given time”.
At present, three FIFA Executive Committee members are also members of the IOC, world sport’s most powerful club. Under current rules, however, two of them – Joseph Blatter, FIFA’s President, and Issa Hayatou, Senior Vice President – will have to retire on the same day: 31 December 2016.
That would potentially leave Burundi’s Lydia Nsekera as the only Exco member with full IOC membership beyond that date.
If passed as currently worded, the new recommendation could open the door for Cameroon’s Hayatou, 68, the long-serving President of the African Football Confederation (CAF), to remain for an extra four years. Not so Blatter, however.
This is because the FIFA President, 78, is already well beyond his 70th birthday. He has been able to remain a full member because his IOC membership pre-dates 11 December 1999, a seniority permitting him to stay until the end of the calendar year in which he turns 80.
On the face of it, the wording of the new recommendation makes no allowance for the term of office of octogenarian members to be similarly extended. So if Blatter is re-elected next year to the FIFA Presidency, he apparently faces the prospect of serving more than half of his new term without being a full IOC member.
It will be interesting to observe whether the IOC’s deliberations in Monte Carlo on December 8 and 9 do anything to change this.
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