There are few equivalents of the G7, Brics or the UN security council in sport, invitation-only clubs reserved for the wealthiest and most powerful. From athletics to swimming, rowing to basketball, football to fencing, almost all international federations adhere to the principle of one nation, one vote. As a Fifa executive once put it to me: “If people find it strange that the vote of a small Caribbean country should count for as much as Germany’s or Brazil’s, what would they say if Bill Gates’s vote counted for more than his gardener’s in a US election?”
Touché. The question arises, then, of why this model of radical democracy has led to what we see today: a number of international sports bodies that are run like fiefdoms by presidents who are routinely re-elected for term after term without opposition, autocrats in all but name. The answer is that, if all the votes count the same, some voters are more equal than others. More to the point, many of them, the majority in fact, are less equal than others. They are the federations of smaller, poorer countries that are financially dependent on the funding provided by their sport’s governing body. The power bestowed on them by the electoral system ends up being used to prop up their benefactor.
So it is that sport will almost certainly witness soon the triumphant return of Alisher Usmanov, the man who had reigned unchallenged over world fencing since 2008, when he was first elected president of the International Fencing Federation (FIE), until he had to step down from his position in March 2022.
The former minority shareholder of Arsenal and patron of Everton, described by the official journal of the EU as a “pro-Kremlin oligarch with particularly close ties to Russian president Vladimir Putin […] one of Putin’s favourite oligarchs”, had been one of the first Russian nationals to be subject to sanctions in the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Usmanov tried to have these sanctions overturned in the European court of justice, but lost his appeal in February and, as it stands, is subject to a travel ban and an asset freeze order in 38 countries, 37 of which are members of the FIE, including Switzerland, where the federation has its headquarters.
Yet, two-thirds of FIE’s 156 affiliate federations have proposed or endorsed the oligarch for the election that will take place on 30 November in Uzbekistan, the country where Usmanov was born and which he represented as a sabre specialist in the days of the old USSR. His sole opponent will be Otto Drakenberg, a Swedish businessman who competed in the épée event at the 1988 Seoul Olympics, whose only hope of winning the FIE election is Usmanov being barred from the vote.
In theory, this could still happen; but for it to do so the International Olympic Committee (IOC), under whose aegis the FIE operates, would have to show some respect for the values enshrined in its own charter. Given how close Usmanov is to the IOC president, Thomas Bach, also a former fencer, this seems unlikely. Bach was, with Putin, one of the first to congratulate his “friend” Usmanov in effusive terms when he was elected – unopposed, by acclamation – for a fourth presidential term at the head of the FIE in 2021.
Questions of ethics aside, Usmanov’s election would set a new bar for absurdity in the world of sports politics, even if it follows another kind of implacable logic, the logic of financial self-interest. As was pointed out by the Swedish Fencing Federation in a letter to the FIE executive committee, Usmanov would be unable to run the organisation from its HQ in Switzerland, as he cannot set foot there. He would also be unable to attend the competitions held in 36 other countries, such as the FIE World Cup events that will take place in Spain, Germany, Italy, France, the USA and Greece in the two months after his likely election. (The IOC and Usmanov’s legal representative were contacted for comment.)
In legal terms, the FIE is a Swiss entity and must comply with the law of the land. Having the sanctioned Usmanov as its president, it could find itself deprived of access to its own funds. To quote from an explanatory note written by the sanctions division of Switzerland’s state secretariat for economic affairs, “the asset freeze and the prohibition of making funds available apply not only to sanctioned individuals, but also to organisations that are owned or – directly or indirectly – controlled by them”.
This may get some of the Russian’s backers to think again, as, in the end, it is because of money that so many affiliate federations of the FIE have supported Usmanov with such enthusiasm until now. The multi-billionaire should be given his due: he can be a very generous man. In February 2020, he donated to the IOC’s Lausanne museum the 1892 manuscript in which Pierre de Coubertin outlined his plan for the rebirth of the Olympic Games. Usmanov had paid $8m (£6.1m) for it a few months before. Similarly, it is his largesse that has enabled the FIE to survive through the Covid years.
Usmanov, who is believed to have built a $15bn fortune through his metal and mining empire, regularly made large personal donations to what was very much his federation, so large, in fact, that they amounted to 93% of its total income in 2020 (5m out of 5.4m Swiss francs). By contrast, in 2023, with Usmanov gone, FIE reported a revenue of 1.8m Swiss francs – and a loss of 6.5m.
The decision lies in the hands of the delegates who will assemble in Tashkent at the end of the month, the delegates of national federations such as Afghanistan, who last sent a fencer to an international competition in 2006, when Muzzamil Farooq finished 149th in the world championships. In fencing nations such as France or Italy, where the oldest Olympic discipline is supported by the public purse, Usmanov’s gifts mean nothing, and support for his candidacy is almost nonexistent, Hungary being an unsurprising exception.
But in countries where fencing remains an amateur sport – for the athletes, but not the administrators – a different kind of game is taking place, one that Usmanov has played for a long time and in which he’s always emerged victorious. How could it be otherwise? The smaller the federation, the bigger the enticement; and what passes for a democratic vote ends up an auction. The highest bidder will always leave with the lot.
