The Ski Association needs radical changes. Kentvatvaki trusts that they will be carried out by the person who brought the union to this situation, writes Pekka Holopainen.
Pekka Holopainen sports reporter
The president of the Finnish Skiing Association was tapped on Saturday evening Sirpa Korkatti makes history in two ways.
From running the umbrella organization of athletics, the Finnish Sports Federation Riga From the butt became the first female driver in her association last year. Korkatti is now doing the same in the umbrella organization of Finland’s favorite winter sports. They are the first female presidents of these traditional sports associations.
Another historic landmark is more questionable: Korkatti, who works in management positions at the Eerikkilä sports college in Kantahämälä, gets his hands on an organization that, in its recent financial statements, racked up almost two million euros of cod at the group level. In the world of sports organizations, that would be an SE-level performance.
Of course, all the news related to it did not please the resigned chairman very much Markku Haapasalmeawho has freely given the lion’s share of his free time to unpaid trust work for a small eternity.
Only one challenger
Haapasalmi did not take a side in the presidential election, which is in accordance with civilized custom. However, according to Urheilu’s information, he worked hard to get counter-candidates for Korkat. The union’s public image already demanded it.
But only one was received. Has already had a long career in the ski association in recent years Jari Piirainen took silver in Jyväskylä’s election state.
When the former head coach Kari-Pekka Kyrö more than a decade ago, Piirainen was harshly bullied in the media for his relationship during the Ski Federation with the then structural doping culture, Piirainen finally had enough and threatened Kyrö with a request for an investigation.
The former head of skiing and the CEO of the association succinctly stated that “continually being in a bloody mess is enough”.
Resilience is needed
A person who acquired this kind of street-level resilience would surely have been in place to be president of the Ski Association in this situation, because the near future is going to be downright rough.
The acute cash crisis of the spring is already taken for granted, and the coaches responsible for the national teams preparing for next year’s World Cup will probably have no more than last spring. If even that.
Insofar as the state of the Hiihtoliitto group and the financial statements are honest, even for Korkat, everyone understands that the time for flirting is over. If the chairman is not committed to help without asking in this situation, he is in the wrong business.
A handsome list of refusers
In the rapidly receding years, the chairmanship of the Ski Association was also a societal point of view and influence, for which there was competition.
Now, the list of refusers says a lot about the attractiveness of sports confidence washers who are so demanding and inevitably bring negative publicity. General Timo Kivinenex-head coach Petter Kukkonen and the CEO of the Bank of Finland Olli Rehn politely thanked for the interest.
There are enough places on the screen
With Korkat and the renewed board, there are now enough places on the screen in every direction.
The staff is waiting to see if the new chairman would finally take up the address, interpreted as a distress call, about the management of the organization. Recently, even partnership sales, which have been described as stagnant, should be taken off. And so on.
The new leader gets his seam. But one of the federal commissioners who was in the process of choosing the trust leadership admits that the field watcher is a bit suspicious as to whether the ship-turner is the very person who was initially steering Purtilo to the rock in the key positions of the trust leadership.
Time will tell.