Portugal's Sports Boss Asked To Ensure There's No Silva Lining On Dismissal Of Outgoing FPN Head
Portugal's sports authority asked to remind FPN that it must formalise the dismissal of its current president, a move "essential to reaffirm the commitment to the standards that govern Portuguese Sport" and reinforce "an important example of transparency and compliance".
The whistleblower who initiated an integrity investigation into António Silva has asked the Portuguese Institute of Sport and Youth (IPDJ) to reinforce its decision to dismiss him from his position as president of the national swimming federation (FPN), after a court decision last week halted a series of delaying tactics.
The highest sports authority in Portugal, the Secretary of State for Sport, Pedro Dias, has been informed of the request sent to the IPDJ by Alexandra Jorge.
A ruling by the Tribunal of Sintra last Wednesday dashed Silva's hopes of ending his official term in office at the FPN this Saturday without having been formally removed from office.
Jorge notes in her request that formalising Silva's dismissal is "essential to reaffirm the commitment to the standards that govern Portuguese Sport"
The General Assembly of the FPN will now meet to elect a new president and administration on November 16th knowing that the IPDJ (the Portuguese Institute of Sport and Youth) and the tribunal that ended a challenge to that authority's order to dismiss under national laws designed to ensure good governance, transparency and integrity at the nation's funded sports institutions, agree there's no impediment to the action ordered in January:
- The IPDJ's January order to dismiss Silva must be formally approved by the chairman of the general assembly the FPN and the measure recorded in the minutes for the record and posterity.
Not only will that see Silva leave office in shame but it also casts doubts on the candidacy of one of the two men standing for the presidency this weekend because any new FPN administration that does not agree to formalise Silva's dismissal on integrity grounds is highly likely to have its Government funding scrapped and its mandate to select national teams, organise and regulate aquatics sport removed.
The vote for the new president is a choice between continuity candidate Rui Sardinha and legal eagle and former Olympian Miguel Arrobas, who is standing on a reform ticket of transparency, integrity and offering a clean-slate start for the FPN after a period of turmoil for Portuguese swimming that critics of Silva describe as "shameful".
Sardinha has been one of Silva's right-hand men for the past 12 years and is part of the incumbent top team at the federation that had its collective wrist firmly slapped by the Sintra Tribunal last week, when it was ordered to pay the full euros 30,000 legal costs of a process that ended in further attempts to delay Silva's dismissal being thrown out.
Sardinha is on the offensive at hime this morning, his campaign trail reaching the national media in Portugal in the first part of a feature in sport paper, A Bola, looking at the candidates for the FPN presidency. A relative newcomer to swimming, Sardinha says: "... we need to rethink the entire management model". And that after 12 years in power alongside Silva.
In the same feature, despite the vote on Saturday being a closed ballot, Sardinha attacks the president of a regional association who he appears to believe among those who will not voted for him.
In another interview, with the Lusa news agency, Sardinha notes the "financial benefits" to the FPN of Silva's time as head of European Aquatics. Why there is a financial gain for the country of an incumbent president is not made clear. Arrobas was also interviewed by the same agency and other media yesterday and stated that one of his key aims is to place the "athlete, coach and clubs" at the heart of everything the FPN does.
LUSA
In the rest of this article:
- International Federations On Watch
- What Jorge asks of the IPDJ and why - in her words
- Why critics of the current FPN administration call out effort to remove delegates at regional associations from power, Lisbon a key case in point, and put pressure on athletes and referees ahead of Saturday's elections
- The transparency and integrity issues raised by the sorry saga
State of Swimming is now on Blue Sky
