Brian 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.”