GAMES

October 19 - The former Rio 2016 marketing team, led by Maggie Sanchez (pictured right with chief executive Leonardo Gryner) who until just days ago was the Organising Committee's chief commercial and marketing director, have shed light on the mysterious circumstances that saw them dismissed from their positions.

Sanchez, along with two of her senior deputies David Alstadter and Rogerio Ludorf, left in what the Rio 2016 leadership described as an "incompatibility of philosophies".

However, in a joint statement to their partners, seen by insidethegames, the trio have aired their side of the story.

"As you have all no doubt heard or been notified by now, we are no longer a part of the Rio 2016 Organising Committee for the Olympic and Paralympic Games," the statement read.

"This is sad for us, as we will not be finishing this great journey with you.

"We are very proud of the outstanding and record breaking work we and our commercial and marketing team have accomplished in building what has been widely recognised by you - the partner community, the IOC (International Olympic Committee) and Rio 2016 leadership, as an outstanding commercial and marketing programme with our innovative 'Aim High' platform."

The statement continues: "We have accomplished many records and successes together, here are but a few: the biggest deal in Olympic history with our Financial Services and Insurance partner, delivering our first partner connection workshop in June 2011 earlier than any other Olympic and Paralympic Organising Committee, and the great feedback for our commercial and marketing programme from the IOC during our IOC Coordination Commission review in June 2011.

"Why the Rio 2016 leadership separated with the three senior and top performing leaders of the commercial and marketing team at the height of its success and during a critical sponsorship phase is an answer that only your heart and experience can help you individually understand.

"They have been quoted as saying: we had 'incompatible philosophies'.

"Here are the principles of our Philosophy...

"• First and foremost, integrity in all we do

"• Holding ourselves accountable to the highest standards, being self-aware, measuring our results to enable us to fine tune and always seeking to develop

"• Adherence to the Olympic values, friendship, respect and excellence and the spirit of Baron de Coubertin's vision for the modern Olympic Games

"• Honest, open and fair business practices and communications, seeking to create win – win situations with maximum return on investment for all stakeholders

"• Utilising Olympic, Paralympic and fortune 500 business best practices to set a new benchmark for delivering the Games

"• Hiring and embracing a team of competent diverse people, and creating a culture of empowerment to ensure scalability, distributed decision making and success

"• Promoting and harnessing the power of diversity - professional backgrounds, nationalities, genders, ages, etc. - to ensure the maximum possibility for new ideas and success

"• Thinking outside the box or paradigm, fostering innovation, taking on challenges and setting big bold goals

"• Recognising and rewarding outstanding individual and team performances

"• Never bowing to adversity and never exalting in triumph

"• Staying humble with our successes, as they are never ours alone, but those of all that we work with and support us

"• Contributing to society in a meaningful way

"We have spent our personal lives and professional careers living, developing and adapting with this philosophy as our guiding principle.

"Indeed, if we have a difference in philosophies with the Rio 2016 leadership, then we are proud to stand by ours."

The statement ends with a personal farewell from Sanchez who says: "One of my favourite quotes from Gandhi is 'Be the change you want to see in the world'.

"Change is often the seed of hope.

"We hope you agree we have demonstrated our willingness to be the change we want to see."

-Tom Degun

Source: www.insidethegames.biz

October 13 - London 2012 have urged people to consider applying for one of the tens of thousands of job opportunities to work on the Games that are set to become available between now and the Olympic Opening Ceremony on July 27.

By the start of the Games, London 2012 will have a workforce of around 6,000 paid staff, up to 70,000 volunteers and around 100,000 paid contractors.

Thousands of contractor opportunities and around 4,000 roles with London 2012 will become available over the next six months with a large percentage of the roles set to be short-term opportunities starting from April 2012 and lasting the duration of the Olympic Games, Paralympic Games or both.

The London 2012 Ceremonies company will also have around 350 jobs available and will be looking for people to join various teams, from costume to stage management.

"Without the tens of thousands of people working on the London 2012 Games, they simply wouldn't happen," said London 2012 chief executive Paul Deighton.

"If someone wants to be able to say that they played a part in making London 2012 a success, then this is their opportunity.

"There is a role out there for everyone and I would urge everyone to keep an eye on our website and start applying for these once-in-a-lifetime opportunities."

Students across Britain will be a key target for the short-term jobs and the Bridging the Gap scheme will provide them with a springboard for future careers, particularly in the security sector.

On completion of the required security qualification, they will be guaranteed an interview for a role at the Games with G4S, the official London 2012 security provider.

The Summer Jobs of a Lifetime website, run by London 2012 official recruitment services provider Adecco, will also be an important recruitment channel for London 2012's contractors and allows students to register their interest in working on the Games.

In addition, a wide variety of new jobs are also being created by London 2012 sponsors, suppliers and other businesses who are seeking additional staff as a result of the Games.

"This is chance for thousands of people to play their part in a little bit of history," said minister for sport and the Olympics Hugh Robertson.

"It will be an excellent addition to anyone's CV and a unique opportunity to do something fulfilling, exciting and fun."

To help ensure the widest possible range of people can be involved with London 2012, there will jobs available at all levels which will cater for a wide range of skills and talent.

London 2012 is also committed to ensuring that 15 to 20 per cent of its workforce comes from the six host boroughs and is working closely with job brokerages and Job Centre Plus to ensure as many people as possible in those communities are aware of opportunities with London 2012.

"The London 2012 Games is creating thousands of jobs and the host boroughs are working hard to make sure that local people looking for employment opportunities can access these," added Councillor Chris Roberts, leader of Greenwich Council and lead on employment and skills for the six Host Boroughs.

"For many of the roles you don't need qualifications or previous experience, so it's an opportunity for anyone to be involved.

"The Host Boroughs' jobs brokerage schemes have a unique record of success in placing local people into new jobs.

"They will be working with London 2012 to ensure that their residents benefit from this opportunity and that many of the thousands of roles available are filled by local residents."

Opportunities with contractors will be advertised in job brokerages and Job Centre Plus branches across London and the rest of the UK, while contractor opportunities will also be on the Jobs for the Games website, run by Adecco.

Many London 2012 contractors will also be hiring through their own recruitment channels.

Source: www.insidethegames.biz

By Tom Degun

October 13 - Mike Lee, the doyen of sports spin doctors, says far more major events will go the way of emerging nations in years to come, replacing traditionally "safe" venues because of highly persuasive legacy claims.

Lee has a near-perfect track record in advising bidding candidates, having successfully campaigned for the London 2012 and Rio 2016 Olympics, the Winter Games of Pyeongchang in 2018 and the 2022 Qatar World Cup, arguably the biggest surprise in bidding history.

He believes the stronger economies, can-do attitude and more potent messages being delivered by the new breed of would-be hosts more than justify so many sports events ending up in these regions instead of in established cities and countries.

"We sit here in the UK and Europe and there is an arrogance at times to think we were the great traditional home and that we should always be so," said Lee, the former communications director of London 2012, who is now chairman of Vero Communications, the company he set-up.

"Indeed we were when sport was coming into a certain stage of its development and we were one of the strongest economies.

"The world is changing and sport is waking up to it.

"That's why so many decisions are made to go to Sochi, Rio, Pyeongchang, Russia, Qatar."

What a country like Qatar and the Middle East region in general can present to the world, said Lee, "are probably greater than you can achieve in a country like the UK and in a city like London."

He explained further: "Everyone around the world sees London as a very mature, fantastic historic city with so much of it having grown up over 200 years.

"The ability to have an impact in transformation terms is actually harder.

"In a country like Qatar, engaging in massive infrastructure, building and creating whole new communities and developing more of a sporting culture, the margins to make this happen are so much bigger...especially with an economy as strong as that and a vision for the future.

"There is a dramatic axis shift going on and if sport isn't in tune with that, it will miss a massive opportunity."

Switching to London 2012, Lee said there was a danger of too much focus on the troubles affecting the Olympic Stadium and not enough attention on other benefits.

Legacy, he said, was not just short-term and did not only involve the main venue.

"Getting legacy right is not easy," said Lee, speaking here at the International Sports Event Management (ISEM) conference.

"In a city like London it's even more complicated that in a country like Russia or Brazil or Qatar which have much more scope for investment and development, more of a blank canvas.

"The London debate is over-dominated by the stadium issue.

"It's a massive question for sure and hard to solve in the medium and longer term but there are other benefits that come with London 2012 that don't get the headlines.

"Legacy is complicated - you get it wrong if you just focus on the main centrepiece."

By Andrew Warshaw

Source: www.insidethegames.biz

October 2 - The decision two years ago today to award the 2016 Olympics and Paralympics to Rio de Janeiro marked a major turning point in the history of Brazil, it has been claimed.

Rio were chosen ahead of Chicago, Madrid and Tokyo at the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Session in Copenhagen, sparking memorable scenes among the thousands of people watching the announcement on giant screens on Copacabana Beach.

"Two years ago, yet another historical date was added to Rio de Janeiro's and Brazil's official calendar: the day we won the right to host the Olympic and Paralympic Games for the first time," said Carlos Nuzman, the President of Rio 2016 in a statement released to coincide with the anniversary.

"It is precisely because I understand this milestone needs to be valued that I make a point of starting all my presentations on the subject with the video that recalls this unprecedented achievement.

"All the efforts of a decade to make the dream of bringing the Olympic and Paralympic Games to Brazil culminated on that date.

"Today we make steady progress on the road to memorable Games.

"And recalling October 2, 2009, means strengthening in each one of us the motivation to work towards the delivery of a successful event that brings about sustainable transformations.

"Today we celebrate that turning point in the history of Brazilian sport and of our country.

"It is in this frame of mind, as we complete two years of that victory, that I invite us all to recall our feelings on that day and to celebrate this achievement that belongs to everyone of us."

Source: www.insidethegames.biz

By Duncan Mackay

September 21 - Issa Hayatou, the African football powerbroker who has twice denied corruption allegations in the past year, has been handed responsibility by FIFA for running the football tournament at next year's London Olympics despite being under investigation by the International Olympic Committee's (IOC) Ethics Commission.

In what will be viewed as a highly contentious choice in some circles, Hayatou has been appointed head of FIFA's Organising Committee for Olympic football tournaments starting with London 2012.

The 65-year-old from Cameroon, a member of the IOC since 2001, has also been appointed to take over FIFA's GOAL project that supports development programmes in poorer nations.

Although Hayatou, President of the Confederation of African Football (CAF), was boss of the Organising Committee at last year's World Cup, he is still under investigation by the IOC following claims by a BBC television programme that he received a payment of 100,000 French francs in 1995 from the now defunct marketing company ISL.

Hayatou claimed his conscience was clear and that the money was given to the CAF to celebrate their 40th anniversary.

But IOC President Jacques Rogge referred the allegations to the IOC Ethics Commission which still have to report their findings but could expel the 65-year-old as an IOC member if they find him guilty.

Six months after the Panorama programme, Hayatou again became embroiled in controversy when a British parliamentary inquiry into England's failed 2018 World Cup was told that he  was allegedly  paid $1.5m each to vote for Qatar's 2022 World Cup bid.

Qatar beat the United States by a landslide in the final round of voting for the right to host the 2022 tournament, the biggest ever upset in bidding history.

Hayatou described the corruption claim as "pure invention" while Qatar's Football Association denounced the accusations as "serious and baseless" and said they would "remain unproven because they are false."

An inquiry into the allegations, which first came to light in newspaper reports and were disclosed under Parliamentary privilege, later found there was no evidence whatsoever  to support them while serious allegations made by a whistle-blower regarding Qatar's World Cup bid were subsequently withdrawn.

Yet eyebrows are bound to be raised at the decision to allow Hayatou to run the GOAL programme, set up by Sepp Blatter and regarded as one of his proudest achievements.

Next month Blatter, eager to make a positive statement at the start of his final four-year term as president, announces his eagerly awaited reforms to tackle bribery and corruption.

To add even more spice to the scenario, Hayatou takes over from Mohamed Bin Hammam, banned for life by FIFA for allegedly offering bribes to Caribbean football leaders at the time he was a Presidential candidate yet still persuing an appeals process.

Not only that.

The eight-manGOAL Committee entrusted to Hayatou is understood to include Richard Groden, general secretary of the Trinidad and Tobago football federation and one of those still under investigation by FIFA in the Bin Hammam bribery scandal.

Source: www.insidethegames.biz

By Andrew Warshaw