The Olympic Council of Ireland (OCI) has inadequate audit functions, is not transparent and pays little or no attention to ethical functions, a report into the organisation has found.
The OCI also has no strategic plan for what it is supposed to achieve, according to the report by consultants Deloitte who were asked to examine the organisation's governance and management.
In contrast to national Olympic bodies examined elsewhere, the OCI had “limited or no information” on “managing conflicts of interest, behaviours and ethics and roles and responsibilities”.
If accepted and implemented, the highly critical report spells a definitive end to the 28-year reign of OCI president Pat Hickey, currently facing trial in Brazil on charges of ticket touting, what is termed ambush marketing, theft, tax evasion, money-laundering and criminal association.
Mr Hickey, who denies the charges, insists he remains president of the council and has merely stepped aside temporarily following his arrest in August in Rio de Janeiro.
The report says no member of the executive committee, on which Mr Hickey sits, should serve more than two four-year terms. It says there is “strong evidence” that limiting terms “prevents the dominance of one viewpoint or mode of thought”.
Limited term of office
The majority, or 96 per cent of OCI stakeholders – the individual sporting federations that constitute the council – support the idea of limiting terms of office.
The report, which OCI members received yesterday and met in Dublin to discuss last night, suggests executive and management roles within the OCI are ill-defined, that rules governing the calling of meetings and what can be discussed at them are opaque.
The OCI’s executive committee issued a statement after its meeting, saying that it would review the consultants’ report in the coming days for “factual inaccuracies”.
It said Deloitte would then finalise the report which would be published soon after.
