Considering constitutional changes media reports focus on Swimming Australia’s loss of sponsorship

Facing the threat of expulsion from international swimming by World Aquatics unless it makes changes to its constitution to be more inclusive of athletes, a special general meeting of Swimming Australia being held today has been rocked by media reports of over the body's loss of direct funding from sponsor Hancock Prospecting and its Executive Chairman Gina Rinehart.

Reports today in News Limited publications and the Daily Mail suggest "incredible, unprecedented turmoil" at Swimming Australia and that it lost its billionaire former sponsor due to irregularities over payments to athletes.

Despite Australia securing 13 gold medals at the recent World Championships in Japan, making Australia the world’s top ranked swimming nation, the reports point to "the sport in Australia is leading a bizarre double life, mixing record medal hauls with mayhem".

Noting that the backing from Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting allowed athletes to train as fulltime professionals, the reports, favourable to Rinehart and seemingly backing her agenda, advise that Rinehart has injected more than $60 million into Olympic and Paralympic sports and still sponsors 92 elite swimmers "but her relationship with Swimming Australia was broken two years ago".

In that time it is understood that Swimming Australia's sponsorship has dropped from around $10 million to just over $3 million a year.

Rinehart’s own swimming gala awards night - The Patron’s Awards - at her home in Brisbane next month is partly a consequence of a funding fallout over two gala awards nights which never happened.

Last month a report in Nine newspapers indicated that when President of Swimming Australia, current Australian Sports Commission Chief Executive Kieren Perkins had felt Rinehart was trying to “coach the team and run the board".

This overreach also included a request for a seat on the Swimming Australia board for a representative of Hancock Prospecting - subsequently rejected amid concerns over her influence as a sponsor.

Swimming Australia was quoted by Sydney’s The Daily Telegraph as saying “during the re-negotiation process it was clear a number of Hancock Prospecting’s terms, including the mandating of board and executive positions, were not capable of acceptance”.

Rinehart was reported as saying that she did not “think it is an unusual or unfair expectation for any sponsor of sports to be sure its funds are going to the athletes and if applicable for agreed purposes” and that a “voiceless observer” was “hardly an interference with the board”.

Today’s special general meeting is being held after a stern letter from the world governing body which called for changes to the constitution within 90 days “to make it more representative and inclusive of its athletes”.

Speaking about the changes being considered at the today’s meeting, Swimming Australia’s president, Michelle Gallen, said were much needed and would bring “stability to how our sport is governed”, noting "the message from the governing body is abundantly clear.

“If we don’t make these necessary changes, then our standing in the sport is in jeopardy.”

The proposed new constitution has been endorsed by World Aquatics but has not yet been published.

World Aquatics Executive Director, Brent Nowicki noted “World Aquatics welcomes the changes to the Swimming Australia constitution, which will give more power to athletes and a voice on the board, while also delivering a broader voting base more closely connected to athletes and coaches."

in 2019, Swimming Australia honoured Rinehart with its Lifetime Contribution Award.

Images: Top, credit: Swimming Australia and Gina Rinehart (below, credit: Hancock Prospecting).