A group of large member organizations of the Olympic Committee is looking for a credible counter-candidate to Tapio Korjus. Jukka Mäkelä, the outgoing mayor of Espoo, considered it, but ended up refusing it.
14:34•Updated 14:45
With exactly two months to go until the autumn meeting, which will fundamentally change the leadership of the Olympic Committee, only one name has been registered for the chairman game so far. He is the principal of Kuortane sports college, one of the vice-chairmen of the board of the Olympic Committee Tapio Korjus.
According to Urheilu’s information, the umbrella organizations of major team sports associations, such as football, ice hockey and floorball, are gathering their forces in a joint project in order to find a viable counter-candidate for Korjus for the November 30 election. According to the individual sports federations, at least the Gymnastics and Ski Federation have been asked about the project. The latter deals with the matter as the chairman Shirpa Korkat included in the next board meeting on Tuesday next week.
– At least not Korjus, says one sports influencer working for the project to Urheilu anonymously.
As the first counter-candidate to Korjus, the mayor of the city of Espoo, who will retire at the turn of the year, was asked Jukka Mäkelää. A former member of parliament from the Kokoomoo confirmed to Urheilu on Monday that interest was asked. Mäkelä ended up giving a negative answer. However, other names have been collected on the list, which are turned to these days.
The chairman of the Olympic Committee’s member organizations at the core of the project, the Ice Hockey League Heikki Hietanen did not want to comment on the situation in public, the chairman of the Football Association Ari Lahti again spoke about it quite sparingly.
“In active phase”
– The Balloliitto will consider its position on the issue at the board meeting on October 7; this is one item on the agenda. Discussions are currently in an active phase. I can’t promise that we will come out with a name on October 7th. There is not much more to be said on the subject at this point, commented Lahti, who watched the Huhkajie’s away match in London on September 10 of the departing chairman of the Olympic Committee Jan Vapaavuoren with.
Lahti himself is not interested in the candidacy.
The Ice Hockey Association currently does not have a representative on the board of the Olympic Committee, where an ex-ice hockey player Emma Terho sits on the mandate of an IOC member. General Secretary of the Football Association Marco Casagrande sits on the board.
Among the major sports federations, Urheiluliitto, the umbrella organization of athletics, has signed up behind Korjus, the Olympic champion in the javelin throw. Korjus is also receiving support from several other associations representing individual sports. This dividing line also boils down to the will of team sports people to find a significant counter-candidate for Korjus.
– The team sports crowd has been very surprised that even the crisis talk after the Paris Olympics has been completely individual sports oriented, says the team sports influencer.
In the Olympic Committee’s board vote, the federations of the Olympic sports have two votes and
other full members have one. Federations of non-Olympic sports have two votes if their clubs have more than 15,000 license holders. Such an organization is, for example, the Floorball Association.