{"id":2469081,"date":"2019-12-20T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-12-20T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.outsideonline.com\/uncategorized\/olympic-swimming-court-ruling\/"},"modified":"2022-05-12T13:18:20","modified_gmt":"2022-05-12T19:18:20","slug":"olympic-swimming-court-ruling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.outsideonline.com\/outdoor-adventure\/water-activities\/olympic-swimming-court-ruling\/","title":{"rendered":"Swimming’s Governing Body Is in Hot Water"},"content":{"rendered":"

On December 16, a\u00a0San Francisco court ruled that the F\u00e9d\u00e9ration Internationale de Natation<\/a> (FINA), the body based in Lausanne, Switzerland,\u00a0that governs Olympic swimming, has to answer to\u00a0allegations that it has been operating an illegal monopoly, in part by financially punishing athletes who want to compete in events that it doesn\u2019t recognize or control.<\/p>\n

The judgment came after a year of hearings in a suit jointly filed by the International Swimming League<\/a> (ISL), a new global swimming competition, and three champion swimmers pursuing a class-action suit against FINA, a subsidiary of the International Olympic Committee<\/a> (IOC). The swimmers are U.S. Olympic butterflyer Tom Shields<\/a>, U.S. world-champion individual-medley swimmer Michael Andrew, and multiple gold medalist\u00a0Katinka Hossz\u00fa, from Hungary.<\/p>\n

Denying FINA\u2019s attempt to dismiss the case and keep sealed internal communications disclosed during the discovery process, San Francisco District Court magistrate judge Jacqueline Scott Corley ruled that, in their attempt to show that FINA was operating \u201ca global anti-trust conspiracy\u2026 the plaintiffs have satisfied their burden of making a prima facie\u201d case. The court will hold an initial case-management conference to\u00a0determine the\u00a0next steps\u00a0in mid-January 2020.<\/p>\n

ISL founder and owner Konstantin Grigorishin, who has accused the Olympic establishment of violating European and U.S. antitrust law, said the decision will have wide-ranging\u00a0ramifications. Shields, Andrew, and Hossz\u00fa, he said, could now be joined by thousands of other elite swimmers in suing FINA for compensation for earnings they lost\u00a0due to FINA\u2019s ban on participation in commercial, non-Olympic events. In addition, Grigorishin said, \u201cWe can also apply this judgment to all Olympic sports and the IOC.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Konstantin
Konstantin Grigorishin, head of the ISL advisory board<\/span> (Catherine Ivill\/Getty)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

If the plaintiffs ultimately prevail,\u00a0<\/b>this case and another legal precedent\u2014in 2017, there was a similar ruling in Europe involving speed skaters and the International Skating Union\u2014could open the way to American and European commercial operators who, before now, have been effectively barred from promoting Olympic sports.<\/p>\n

Alex Haffner, a sports-law specialist in London who has followed the case closely, cautioned that a finding that FINA has\u00a0a case to answer was not a final verdict. But, he added,\u00a0\u201cIt is clear that FINA now faces a very significant battle to justify the stance taken to the International Swimming League. This in turn raises the further possibility that the substantive\u00a0<\/strong>hearing\u2014if matters proceed to that stage\u2014will set an important precedent.\u201d<\/p>\n

A spokesman who was reached for comment\u00a0at the IOC\u2019s offices in Lausanne referred the matter to FINA, but at press time, FINA had not responded to an interview request.<\/p>\n

The broader commercialization of Olympic sports<\/a>, should it happen, would spell an end to the IOC\u2019s insistence that participants be amateurs for the duration of the Games. While this is no great sacrifice for professionals playing tennis, soccer, and basketball\u2014who earn millions during a typical career\u2014the IOC\u2019s domination of swimming and track and field, and its threat to outlaw any competitions it sees as a rival, have left athletes and swimmers relatively impoverished.<\/p>\n

During this dispute, the IOC has claimed that it\u2019s protecting the purity of sport from commercialism<\/a>. But in an era when the governing body makes $5.7\u00a0billion from sponsorship and television, as it did in the four-year cycle leading up to the Rio Games in 2016, swimmers and runners have complained that they\u2019re being exploited. While the IOC\u2019s accounts show that officials spend millions a year on travel expenses, many athletes struggle to finance their training and Olympic appearances. Some swimmers have even sold their medals to stay in the sport.<\/p>\n

Monday\u2019s judgment follows decades of athletes\u2019 and coaches\u2019 frustration with the IOC\u2019s rule. The modern Olympics<\/a> are often associated with corruption, <\/b>on and off the track, because of a series of scandals involving doping, bribery, embezzlement, and money laundering, particularly at the 2014 Sochi Winter Games, the 2016 Rio Games and, more recently, the run-up to the Tokyo Olympics in July and August next year.<\/p>\n

Such associations\u00a0and the multibillion-dollar sport and transport infrastructure that the IOC insists be created anew for every Olympics have\u00a0left the IOC struggling to find candidates prepared to host the event. The Olympic TV audience is also rapidly aging<\/a>, a symptom, critics say, of the IOC\u2019s format of parades, podiums, and long speeches by elderly officials.<\/p>\n

The San Francisco ruling represents only the latest shake-up of global sports. A new breakaway super league has been discussed in European soccer<\/a>, while rugby, cricket, motor sports, speed skating, athletics, and European basketball have been remade by the arrival of innovative new tournaments in the past two decades. Grigorishin himself has proposed building on the ISL to create a new \u201cprofessional Olympics,\u201d held four times a year, limited to the most popular disciplines\u2014track and field, swimming, marathon, open-water swimming, BMX, beach volleyball, and possibly gymnastics\u2014starting as soon as 2021 in Naples, Italy.<\/p>\n

At the heart of it, the anger directed at the IOC derives from its dual position as sole governing body for most of the 33 sports included in the Games\u00a0and sole revenue provider. That twin ability to bar athletes and strangle funding has, critics say, allowed the Olympic establishment to build an unchallengeable monopoly.<\/p>\n

In her judgment, Judge Corley said this view was borne out by the evidence. The ISL\u2019s debut season this year, which climaxes with a two-day final on December 20 and 21 in Las Vegas, has begun to revolutionize competitive swimming. Centered on four-way matches between swim teams from eight cities\u2014four from the U.S. and four from Europe\u2014the event has drawn thousands of spectators around the world and millions of television viewers.<\/p>\n

But the court heard how, in 2018, when the ISL was trying to host a trial event to introduce swimmers, coaches, and spectators to its new format, it was repeatedly blocked by FINA, which threatened to ban from the Olympics any swimmers who took part.<\/p>\n

At the heart of it, the anger directed at the IOC derives from its dual position as sole governing body for most of the 33 sports included in the Games\u00a0and sole revenue provider.<\/p><\/blockquote><\/div>\n

In a letter sent on June 5, 2018, to all 209 FINA member federations, FINA chief executive Cornel Marculescu, a former Romanian water-polo player who is now 78, warned against taking part in the \u201cso-called international competition \u2018International Swimming League,\u2019 which FINA does not recognise.\u201d Marculescu added that\u00a0the federations were obliged to support all of FINA\u2019s decisions\u00a0and to request permission to take part in any tournament not sanctioned by FINA. The implied threat, the court heard, was that any national swimming body that defied FINA by participating in the ISL would be violating the terms of its\u00a0FINA membership, thereby excluding itself\u00a0from sending swimmers to the Olympics.<\/p>\n

As part of the evidence cited by Corley, the court was shown an email sent on June 4, 2018, by USA Swimming CEO Mike Unger to his counterparts in Britain and Australia, in which Unger wrote that he was \u201cvery interested\u201d in letting American swimmers participate in the ISL, but \u201cthere is one catch (and it\u2019s a major one right now). FINA is apparently not happy with ISL and is intent on derailing the ISL efforts.\u201d<\/p>\n

Unger added that if any swimming federation defied FINA, \u201cFINA can issue penalties against the national federation and its athletes, including suspensions.\u201d In a later email to U.S. Aquatic Sports Inc., Unger wrote: \u201cThis is serious, not just for swimmers and not just for USA Swimming\u201d but for all American aquatic sports. \u201cThis is not a situation to take lightly. The potential ramifications are severe.\u201d<\/p>\n

Soon afterward, USA Swimming told Grigorishin it would not be allowing swimmers to compete in the ISL. Faced with hosting a swimming competition with no swimmers, the ISL eventually cancelled its trial event. The first season of the league only went ahead this October after the ISL and Shields, Andrew, and Hossz\u00fa launched their legal action in December 2018, prompting FINA to capitulate and withdraw its threat of sanctions in January.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A San Francisco court has ruled that the F\u00e9d\u00e9ration Internationale de Natation (FINA), the Switzerland-based body that governs Olympic swimming, has to answer to allegations that it has been operating an illegal monopoly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44696,"featured_media":2407219,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"uuid":"c50ff6b826bddaaf65f8afb40dd44047","footnotes":""},"categories":[2546],"tags":[2653,2644,2732,2637,2877],"byline":[2289],"ad_cat":[],"legacy-category":[],"class_list":["post-2469081","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-water-activities","tag-athletes","tag-europe","tag-olympics","tag-sports","tag-swimming","byline-alex-perry"],"acf":[],"parsely":{"version":"1.1.0","meta":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","headline":"Swimming’s Governing Body Is in Hot Water","url":"https:\/\/www.outsideonline.com\/outdoor-adventure\/water-activities\/olympic-swimming-court-ruling\/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.outsideonline.com\/outdoor-adventure\/water-activities\/olympic-swimming-court-ruling\/"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/cdn.outsideonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/19\/olympic-swimming-underwater_h.jpg","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https:\/\/cdn.outsideonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/19\/olympic-swimming-underwater_h.jpg"},"articleSection":"Water Sports","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"jversteegh"}],"creator":["jversteegh"],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø Online","logo":"https:\/\/www.outsideonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/favicon-194x194-1.png"},"keywords":["athletes","europe","olympics","sports","swimming"],"dateCreated":"2019-12-20T00:00:00Z","datePublished":"2019-12-20T00:00:00Z","dateModified":"2022-05-12T19:18:20Z"},"rendered":"