Editorial | Transparency in athletics governance

The decision by World Athletics to block 11 athletes, including four Jamaicans, from changing their allegiance to Türkiye will, if not overturned, place greater pressure on major domestic sports overseers to look after the economic wellbeing of athletes and to run their organisations with greater transparency.

But even before it is required to make the information available to Türkiye, or the athletes, to facilitate any appeal, World Athletics is obliged to publish in detail, including technical and judicial analysis, the reasons upon which its Nationality Review Panel based its decision.

There is need, for instance, for further and better particulars on why, beyond the declaration that they bore common features, the review panel considered the applications en bloc, rather than analysing the interests of each athlete, and their relationship with Türkiye, separately.

There are also questions of whether this matter was considered in the context of the regulations that were in place at the time of the applications, or if the athletes, and Türkiye, were snared by the regime that ostensibly came into force on March 27.

Among the requirements of the new mechanism is the interrogation of any economic arrangements between the athlete and his new or recruiting country, or between the athletic federations involved in the matter. Were the issue to heaven adjudicated on the new regulations, that might raise concerns about natural justice and the retrospective application of ‘law’.

There will be questions, too, of why, even if Türkiye was, as World Athletics concluded, on “a coordinated recruitment strategy” for quality athletes, the normal cooling-off period between the shifting allegiance and an athlete turning out for her or his new country (usually three years) couldn’t have applied in this case.

This newspaper is cognisant of how deeply wrenching and emotive that matters of this kind can be for the parties involved, especially the athletes and, in this case, Jamaican fans of global athletics. Indeed, Jamaicans tend to be deeply invested in national track and field athletes, whose performances on global stages regularly bring joy and pride to Jamaica, beyond what might be expected of a country of its size, economic resources and state of development. Jamaica is an international athletics powerhouse that has begun to, to match, its dominance in the sprints with stellar performances in other areas of the sport.

This, of course, doesn’t just happen, notwithstanding the country’s vast pool of natural athletic talent. That talent is nurtured by a system, culture and legacy that facilitate its development – schools’ athletics programmes, professional clubs, well-trained, home-grown coaches. And public adulation of athletics success.

It’s not hard to grasp why richer countries, Jamaica history or legacy in athletics, would want to ‘poach’ from the island, and why some athletes would take advantage of the offers, as did:

• Roje Stona (gold in the discus at the Paris Olympics);

• Rajindra Campbell (bronze for shot put);

• Wayne Pinnock (silver in the long jump); and

• Jaydon Hibbert (world under-20 record holder in the long jump and a finalist in Paris in the event).

This quartet is part of an emerging cadre of Jamaican athletes in the field events, which, for fans and corporate sponsors, still lack the appeal of events on the track.

But becoming an athletic star, or earning a viable living from the sport, is not easy. Very few people with promise become elite athletes. The active lifespan of most is hardly more than a decade. The earnings of the majority of professional athletes is relatively modest.

Faced with a lifetime after sport, acceptance of a signing bonus of US$500,000 and other performance incentives – which Mr Stona is reported to have received – can’t easily be ridiculed as some kind of moral failing or unpatriotic act. And not in the case of an athlete who had to scrunt and scrimp, with little official support, to maintain her or his training.

Hit with an official sanction such an athlete might, not without justification, consider it an unreasonable restraint on trade, the right to pursue her livelihood, and the right to extract the greatest value from her talent.

Implicit in World’s Athletics rules, and in the contentions of its member federations that feel victimised or offended by the poaching of others, is that global athletics should be pursued with ethical values and standards that preclude the use of economic power to gain advantage by buying the competitor’s talent.

“These principles are designed to safeguard the credibility of international competition, encourage member federations to invest in the development of domestic talent and maintain confidence among athletes that national teams are not primarily assembled through external recruitment,” World Athletics said in the statement announcing the ban on the Türkiye bound 11 athletes.

However, in this case, the ruling appears to suggest that no matter how long any of the athletes lives, or is a citizen of Türkiye – even up to ripe old ages - they can never represent the country’s national team.

“The panel noted … that this does not prevent the athletes from competing in one-day meetings or road races in a personal or club capacity, or from living and training in Türkiye,” the statement said.

That on its face is vexatious.

When global bodies, and their domestic partners, exert the authority, as does World Athletics, to set conditions of the kind imposed on athletes seeking to change allegiance, those organisations cannot presume themselves to be private clubs and claim the right to operate as such.

That is why The Gleaner now renews its call for a national conversation on the functioning of Jamaica Athletics Administrative Association (JAAA) and the Jamaica Olympic Association to ensure greater transparency and accountability in their structures.