In October 2022, eight of the biggest skiing countries (Sweden, Norway, Finland, Austria, Switzerland, Germany, Italy and Slovenia) started their own group which they call “Snowflake”.
The eight national confederations are dissatisfied with how the International Skiing Federation (FIS) is governed since the Swedish-British Johan Eliasch was elected chairman in 2021.
The big battle is about the marketing rights to the International Ski Federation’s competitions.
Until now, various World Cup organizers have been able to sell their TV rights themselves.
But Eliasch wants to reform the system.
Last summer there was a press release that Fis had reached an agreement with the company Infront and that the World Cup rights from 2026 are to be sold by Fis themselves – not by the national confederations.
Many of the national associations were not satisfied and feel that they were not involved in the negotiations, various people told SVT, NRK and EPN.
They also want to centralize the TV rights but distribute them in a different way than Eliasch and Fis want.
The “Snowflake” group has been trying for a long time to arrange a meeting with Johan Eliasch without success as Fis, according to our information, wanted to discuss with the largest countries separately.
But today, almost a year and a half after “Snowflake” was formed, they were invited to Zurich and a meeting with Fi’s top management. There were representatives from Sweden, Norway, Switzerland, Austria and Germany.
– It was a constructive meeting, and we will meet again in a few weeks, says the Swedish Ski Federation’s general secretary Pernilla Bonde to SVT Sport, but does not want to go into details from the meeting.
We have information that it may become relevant that you countries that work together can break away from Fis and start your own world cups if you do not agree on an agreement. Is that a possibility?
– The ambition is for us to reach an agreement, and that is what we are working towards.
SVT Sport has applied for Johan Eliasch.