After the threat of Swimming Australia being suspended from membership in World Aquatics, the organizations reached an agreement on a path forward today.
We reported last year that Swimming Australia was facing potential expulsion from World Aquatics, held in violation of multiple points within the World Aquatics Constitution, including a lack of athlete voting power on the Board, and the implementation of a Stabilization Committee.
If Swimming Australia and World Aquatics could not resolve issues this week, the nation’s membership in the organization may have been suspended along with other potential ramifications including Aussie athletes having to race under a neutral flag a la Russia and Belarus.
Meeting in Sydney today, Swimming Australia and World Aquatics signed an agreement outlining changes to the Swimming Australian constitution to address such issues as the lack of athlete voting power on the Board and the implementation of a Stabilization Committee.
According to a statement by Swimming Australia, ‘an expanded voting structure will apply from the 2025 AGM and sees the current Member Organisations, including the seven State and Territory Member Organisations, the Swim Coaches and Teachers Association and the Australian Swimmers Association, retain 40 percent of the voting rights, and will now include 5 percent for any Australian World Aquatics Bureau member and 5 percent for Swimming Australia’s Affiliate Members, including Masters Swimming Australia, Water Polo Australia, Diving Australia and Artistic Swimming Australia.’
The statement continued, the additional 50 percent of voting rights will be split between the clubs and athletes, with clubs gaining 30 percent of the voting rights and 20 percent for the athletes.’
Further, ‘the Swimming Australia Board has committed to the addition of an observer appointed by the ASC to the Nominations, People, and Culture Committee and the Board for a period of up to three years. They have also agreed to utilise the services of the ASC to undertake a Board evaluation process, open to all Australian sports.’
As a result of this agreement, Swimming Australia maintains its membership status with World Aquatics and confirms athletes will continue to compete under the Australian flag.
Hayden Collins, Co-Chair of the Swimming Australia Board, said, “We are delighted to have been able to reach this outcome today and thank the Member Organisations for their support in bringing this to a resolution.”
“We look forward to finalising this prior to Christmas and moving forward in a positive manner.”
Brent Nowicki, Executive Director of World Aquatics, said, “We are pleased with the outcome from today’s conversations and believe that the new constitution sets the sport up in Australia for future success.”
“We are also pleased that 50 percent of the voting rights now sit with the community the sport is there to serve, the athletes and clubs. This model will become one which we consider best practice across the world.”
Kieren Perkins, CEO of the Australian Sports Commission, said, “The ASC continues to work with our national sports around good Governance principles and are pleased with the positive outcome of today’s conversations.”
“We look forward to seeing the adoption of these constitutional changes.”
Honestly Australia had it coming…
I am interested to know how many countries that do not fully implement WAQ stipulations.
I don’t believe Australia is the only country that didn’t fully implement WAQ stipulations.
It’s ironic that despite the period of ‘revolving door’ CEOs/Presidents and threats of suspension
from World Aquatics this is the very period when the Australian swimming team has had one of it’s
most successful eras in history. 9 gold at Tokyo, 13 gold at SCW, 13 gold at Fukuoka and 7 gold at Paris.
Thankfully the years of boardroom chaos didn’t affect the results in the pool but nevertheless let’s hope with
Rob Woodhouse at the helm the chaos at the top has finally ended.
Where would wold aquatics be without the swimming cash cow. They need the second most popular sport in the Olympics to remain front and centre of world sport. So you don’t go after the tallest poppy you concentrate on the second tallest poppy to put e erybody in their place.
How ridiculous to put Australia on the pages as zrussia
Don’t speak out about the real elephant in the room or you get put in your place.
What is World Aqutics doing about 23 positive drug tests before the Olympics. Where a country with record of drug offences were allowed to investigate the breach themselves.
When will world Aquatics be managed by members from counties where the rule of law is strong and performance in the pool match that criteria eg Matt Dunn and representations from front line nations Canada, USA, UK, France, Netherlands, south Africa, Japan, Taiwan, Sweden
To name but a few.
Or better still Swimming set their own world body – that would a smart idea.
I don’t think this has much to do with the China situation. USA Swimming is not under any penalty and USADA has certainly been the most outspoken about China.
There are pretty clear governance rules, and Swimming Australia knew that they weren’t in compliance with them. This all began well before the Chinese doping news became public.
The feeling is very different off the record down under
Yeah I mean…people who are aware of the rules and don’t follow them aren’t historically great at taking responsibility for not following the rules, right?
The fact that there was an internal battle as to whether to follow the rules or not pretty-well undermines any conspiracy theories: https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2023/oct/23/swimming-queensland-expresses-concerns-about-control-of-sport-in-australia
Again, the first threat to suspend was made public in June 2023. The Chinese thing didn’t come out until April 2024, and Australia’s reaction to the Chinese certainly didn’t come until after that (and once again, was much tamer than several other countries that aren’t facing sanctions from AQUA).
The timeline of all this just doesn’t make sense for it being any kind of retribution.
World aquatics bows down to cheating queen Zhou Jihong and gobbles up all her money
Nice solution. Saner minds prevail!
NEVER a chance they would be suspended.
For sure, but maybe the threat needed to be made to ensure that.