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news
Pat McQuaid © Simon MacMichael.jpgBrian Cookson hits out at Pat McQuaid’s “attempted dictatorship” of UCI
British Cycling president Brian Cookson has attacked incumbent UCI president Pat McQuaid over an attempt to change the rules governing the nomination of candidates for the top job at the UCI, world cycling’s governing body.
Cookson, who is standing against McQuaid in the UCI presidential election scheduled for September 27, said: “The efforts to change the nomination and electoral process announced last night on behalf of the UCI director general are a clear sign of desperation from the incumbent President, Pat McQuaid.
“This latest twist appears to be nothing more than a fraught attempt to undemocratically and unconstitutionally impact on the process while it is underway.
McQuaid seeks nomination
McQuaid secured a nomination from the Swiss cycling federation after his own home federation, Ireland, voted not to nominate him. That nomination is being challenged in the Swiss courts. The UCI insists this is permitted, but three Swiss Cycling members, Swiss national coach Kurt Buergi, former Swiss Cycling board member Mattia Galli and ex-pro Patrick Calcagni have filed a complaint which will be heard on August 22.
If their complaint is upheld, then McQuaid’s only hope of nomination is the proposed rule change, which will allow any two federations to nominate a presidential candidate and which will be applied retrospectively if it is accepted at the UCI Congress on September 27.
The rule change
The change was explained to UCI Congress members in a letter yesterday from Christophe Hubschmid, director general of the UCI management committee. In that letter, Hubschmid said: “The Malaysian Federation and Asian Continental Confederation state that their aim is to reinforce the independence of future UCI presidents by ensuring they are able to carry out the role based on serving the global interests of cycling, independently from those of any single nominating national federation.”
A press release from the UCI explained:
“As national federations are being informed about this proposal after the original deadline to nominate presidential candidates has passed, as a transitional provision, for the 2013 Presidential elections only, the new amendment also proposes to allow any two national federations to put forward candidates from now until a deadline of Friday 30 August 2013 at 12:00 CEST. These nominations will then become valid if the motion is subsequently approved at Congress.”
Cookson astonished
Brian Cookson expressed astonishment at this development, saying: “It is surely completely out of order to allow a proposal to change an electoral procedure once that procedure is underway. These proposals should never have been permitted onto the agenda.
“In addition to this, which I can only describe as an attempt to change the rules during the game, I note with astonishment that Pat McQuaid is now shown on the election papers as being nominated by three federations.
“The Constitution is quite clear that candidates should be nominated by their own federation. Pat is shown with the designation (IRL) next to his name but, as is well known, Cycling Ireland withdrew his nomination.”
“I have asked the Director General how and why has Pat been given this opportunity?
“It now also appears that any two national federations are to be allowed to make further nominations for the presidency before a new deadline of 30th August, even though under the provisions of the UCI constitution nominations actually closed on 30th June. What sort of organisation attempts to rewrite the rules once an election has actually begun - it smacks of attempted dictatorship.”
Abuse of power
The Swiss case against McQuaid’s nomination is being sponsored by the compression clothing company Skins, whose chairman Jaimie Fuller founded reform group Change Cycling Now and has been one of the most vocal critics of McQuaid and the previous actions of the UCI.
Fuller is not impressed by the attempt to change the UCI rules.
“The latest actions from UCI president Pat McQuaid are those of a desperate man trying to hold onto his dwindling power base,” he said. “This abuse of process and power are unheard of in sports administration circles and his tactics most resemble those of Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe.”
UCI management committee member Mike Plant said he believes that with the intense scrutiny the UCI is currently under, this rule change would further undermine the organisation’s standing.
UCI credibility further destroyed
In a letter to Christophe Hubschmid, Plant wrote: “The timing of this significant change to the Presidential nomination process, less than 60 days from a very contested, globally visible and important election is unconscionable, unethical, dishonest, unprofessional, manipulative and destructive.”
Plant pointed out the level of interest in this election and went on: “Now we are going to change the rules at the 11th hour before this historic election? Does anyone really think the vast majority of our stakeholders, constituencies, fans, media, etc. are going to accept this as a small administrative governance change?
“One month ago, we received the results of the stakeholder study. Over 7,000 respondents overwhelmingly told us that we must restore the credibility in the UCI and its leadership. For the life of me, I cannot see how making this significant change to the nomination process, on the morning of the election will do anything less than further destroy the current reputation and credibility of how this organisation is currently being governed and managed.”
John has been writing about bikes and cycling for over 30 years since discovering that people were mug enough to pay him for it rather than expecting him to do an honest day's work.
He was heavily involved in the mountain bike boom of the late 1980s as a racer, team manager and race promoter, and that led to writing for Mountain Biking UK magazine shortly after its inception. He got the gig by phoning up the editor and telling him the magazine was rubbish and he could do better. Rather than telling him to get lost, MBUK editor Tym Manley called John’s bluff and the rest is history.
Since then he has worked on MTB Pro magazine and was editor of Maximum Mountain Bike and Australian Mountain Bike magazines, before switching to the web in 2000 to work for CyclingNews.com. Along with road.cc founder Tony Farrelly, John was on the launch team for BikeRadar.com and subsequently became editor in chief of Future Publishing’s group of cycling magazines and websites, including Cycling Plus, MBUK, What Mountain Bike and Procycling.
John has also written for Cyclist magazine, edited the BikeMagic website and was founding editor of TotalWomensCycling.com before handing over to someone far more representative of the site's main audience.
He joined road.cc in 2013. He lives in Cambridge where the lack of hills is more than made up for by the headwinds.
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32 comments
Really surprised that phat the rat has missed a " Golden Opportunity " to introduce his pal , the Nth Korean Dictator , into the mix ?
Surely phat knows that Cycle Racing , is virtually non existent in Nth Korea , thus by bringing them into the World Tour , he could count on their unswerving loyalty .
Could he take time between now and end August to visit and investigate ? Could be they would also offer him sanctuary and with the lack of communication facilities , we the Tifosi , could enjoy a holiday from his efforts to emulate , Jim Burn , Robert Mugabe , and Sundry other Dictators ?
Had the Director Generral announced a " possible NEW UCI CHARTER " , his efforts would have been welcomed , BUT , i think after this effort , he should be looking at the "Help Wanted " section of the media !
I'd also fear for Olympic inclusion without the UCI as they are the only body the IOC recognise. Cycling needs the Olympics more than the Olympics need cycling right now but all this shenanigans about doping and corruption might be a bit too close for comfort for other sports governing bodies.
All the chicanery makes me wonder who is really pulling the strings. Old Hein is still there somewhere, I bet, and Pat was always his man from the start, didn't he "groom" him for the job as a natural successor?
I so much want Brian Cookson to get the job and have the chance to start restoring the UCI's credibility.
If Pat wins again, then all the national federations with any guts should simply refuse to affiliate and start a fresh international body where running the sport properly and honestly is the only agenda. The UCI would look pretty poor with just a few allegadly corrupt federations left as members, while the rest of the world got on with doing the job properly. I fear for Olympic inclusion if the current UCI regime is allowed to stay in place.
Why aren't there more candidates?
UCI should have term limits too. Let someone else have a go in the presidential seat.
Unfortunately if Pat doesn't get nominated by someone, somewhere, there'll be no contest and no election, and he can sit on the sidelines sniping at the new direction, claiming the only reason he isn't there is because of a legal challenge in a Swiss court.
If there wasn't still the possibility Pat might survive as president this act of desperation would be amusing.
To anyone that has been involved in organisational committees and the election of representative members on such bodies these events will sound quite bizarre. On an international sporting federation such shenanegans will only bring the UCI in to disrepute.
With all the shit over doping that cycling has had to put up with, this sort of thing will only put more people off supporting the sport they love. It smacks of petty corruption and undermines the authority of the governing body. How can that be a good thing for cycling?
If it goes through it will inevitably result in a legal challenge for the very reasons Cookson has suggested.
It does, my point is that he's approachable and open and comes across as honest. Pretty much the opposite of Pat.
And I think you mean "any relevance" not "no relevance"
[/grammar pedant]
No it doesn't, you can keep saying it does but it doesn't mean anything.
No it doesn't, you can keep saying it does but it doesn't mean anything.[/
Actally Decster said "Cookson is the lesser of 2 evils, but an evil none the less." The second paragraph from Crazy-legs is directly relevant as his point is clearly to refute that statement through demonstrating that Cookson is not "an evil".
Whether you agree that he has proven that Cooksson is not evil or not does not change the relevance of his statement. I'm also in a fairly pedantic mood right now (in which case I'll have to take issue with my use of the term "fairly pedantic" which is surely not possible)
PLEASE find another photo to use...
PLEASE PLEASE!
I see it in my dreams; I'm scared to go to bed.
Here's another photo of Fat Pat that you can use, freely on your website: http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=Pat+McQuaid&l=4 I'm sick of seeing this one.
There are times when I think Robert Mugabe could learn a trick or two from the UCI!
Cookson is not new to the UCI. He knows this type of thing goes on in UCI.
Where was Cookson when UCI apporved Amrstrong's return even though he did not have the minimum 6months of testing completed? This is just 1 example.
Cookson is the lesser of 2 evils, but an evil none the less.
Yes but as he himself says, he may be outspoken on certain issues but like any democratic process it goes to a vote and if the majority agree then so be it. You don't know (although you may be able to look it up) how Cookson voted in that particular example that you cite, for all you know he could have been dead against it but been outvoted in a democratic process.
Brian is a genuinely decent down-to-earth guy. Pop into the velodrome, you may well bump into him, he's often in doing track sessions and he turns up at some of the local crits as well. No special treatment, he pays his entry money, rides with the rest of us but he's sometimes in the velodrome cafe after his track sessions if you want to pop in and share your views with him? Sure he'd love to talk to you...
None of that 2nd paragraph has no relevance to anything Decster said.
Where was Cookson when Armstrong was allowed to return? The answer is not on the UCI Management Committee at the time. He was only elected to it in 2009 after Armstrong had been allowed to return despite not being part of the testing pool for the mandatory 6 months
In fairness, if this was being suggested at any other time I think people would see it as a positive step. It allows federations from around the world to nominate someone and it would mean that a candidate would need to get international support rather than the curret situation where Cookson for example is backed by pretty much all of Europe but not a lot else.
Clearly the timing and the fact that this change is going to be made retrospectively means that it's very very dodgy and obviously a ploy to try and keep McQuaid in the race.
One thing to note though (from Inrng) is that the UCI needs a 2/3rds majority to pass this and Europe (backing Cookson) makes up 1/3rd of the board meaning only one federation outside of Europe has to abstain or vote against the change and it fails.
I'd have to disagree with you there I'm afraid. Federations from around the world can already nominate candidates, as long as they are members of that Federation. More to the point, the current method stops a person who cannot get the nomination of his own Country from whoring the UCI to smaller Federations, promising that they would be thrown a bone in return for nomination. What sort of quid pro quo do you think Pat has offered the Thai and Moroccan Federations for this?
gobsmacked.
Hard to see how McQuaid could be supported at the september Congress with this latest coup.
It is fear, he knows that if Cookson wins and i sincerely hope he does, all his past transgressions, back handers and cover ups are going to be laid bare for the world to see.
I cant wait for it to happen.
I think it's even bigger than that - if Brian was one of his cronies it wouldn't be a problem, but the risk, I believe, is that Brian wins, throws out ALL the dirty linen and we find that the org has basically been run by a dynasty of successive 'buddies' who have mishandled the whole shebang since the start. (Lack of audit trail notwithstanding) That in turn risks the entire downfall of the UCI and the sport in turmoil. Cue re-emergent discussions re breakaway leagues etc.
Still, that might be a good thing in itself. Restart from the ground up, the way it should be done.
Anyone get the feeling that the hours/salary/first class flights/junkets must be *really* good for Pat to fight it this hard?!
One wonders what exactly is motivating Pat McQuid for him to try every trick in the book to hold on to his position - fear ?
If McQuaid wins and asserts a dictatorship over the UCI and world cycling, I look forward to the day that he is strung upside down from a lamppost and given a Mussolini headkick.
Deeply flawed group of politicians (are there any other kind these days?).
Surely this decision can be contested too in the courts?
S@d off Pat and Co. you are corrupt dinosaurs.
They should both be made to Ride a 100 Ml TT and winner takes spot of Top Dog
For the sake of cycling Cookson has to win!
desperate measures from a beaten dictator...
The idea that a number of federations can join together to nominate a candidate isn't that stupid. What's annoying is the changing the rules of an election mid way through. Changes should be made in a non-elction period and not be backdateable.
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