Comment

The withdrawal of Dubai as host to the 2013 world long-course Championships does not require heads to hang at FINA, nor indeed in Dubai, which must cut its coat to suit its cloth in a financial crisis that is yet to see light at the end of what many experts believe will be a very lengthy tunnel indeed the world over. Dubai is an investment melting pot. Its woes and difficulties are, in many ways, our woes. Unfolding events are a sign of times that tell us to chase the money at our peril when making decisions that ought not only to come down to dollars.

There is little point in denying disappointment and bad news at the surface of Dubai's decision and the consequences of that but there is good news in the mix: the moment of facing the truth, of learning the lessons of our time and finding an appropriate response presents FINA and swimming with a fine opportunity to raise performance, to change behaviour, to make a break with what has often been perceived to be a profligate past, not in terms of the rewards due to the leading protagonists taking the plunge but in terms of the world occupied by those who never get wet.

Given that much about bidding processes rests in the realms of the secret, it is no surprise to find the rumour mill churning like a supercharged hamster. Tales abound of fleets of limos, first-class travel for all Bureau members and five-star hotels in chic city locations, tours for the wives and partners of the FINA elite, and, worse still, demands for free clothes, shoes and a wide assortment of gifts from sponsors in quantities fit to fit out and reward whole tribes at the Christmas of all Christmases. A mini IOC-style caricature perhaps - but you get the point: freeloading and unnecessary cost.

Wherever the truth lies (and there is both truth and far-fetched falsehood in the stew of rumours), the bill for a FINA world long-course meet with its five Olympic disciplines is very hefty indeed. A bidder has to count in many tens of millions of dollars these days, while FINA, a non-profit organisation, covers some costs but not necessarily the right ones, nor indeed worthy ones in these days of constraint if the demands and offers of a typical bidders' document are to be believed. 

In the mix of it all is prize money, travel and accommodation and sustenance for large numbers of athletes and officials, aspects of the modern sport that have been publicised as positive moves in recent years on the back of an undercurrent of "bigger is better, more is meaningful". That undercurrent is apt to fool those who swim to it like a rip tide off an Aussie beach.

FINA and Uruguay, home country of the federation's president, Julio Maglione, will host a gathering of minds in September. One of the central themes of the convention is how to keep aquatic sports buoyant in the years ahead. Presentation, marketing, merchandising, the calendar and many more themes are up for discussion. At a time when FINA must begin again a process of bidding for its leading showcase just three years out from the big event, issues of cutting its coat to suit its cloth must surely now be on the agenda.

Before looking a little more deeply at just some of the issues that the federation needs to address, it is worth noting this: within the FINA Bureau and wider 'family', as the federation likes to refer to the aquatic sports circle as, there is a wide church of folk, from givers to takers (and how). There are good, hardworking and knowledgeable men and women who roll up their sleeves and make a constant and worthy contribution to aquatic sports week in, week out, people whose instinct is not to take the bag of freebies, who feel uncomfortable when hosts treat them like royalty, not out of a sense of awe or even respect but simply because the terms of a fat contract must be met. There are also those who travel, eat, sleep and make merry in luxury, in return for doing almost nothing to contribute to the development of FINA and the sports it governs. Their instinct is Kennedy in reverse: not to ask what they can do for swimming but instead what swimming can do for them.

At past championships, I have witnessed things that would make your toes curl, so inappropriate has the freeloading behaviour of certain folk in FINA been at times. The federation cannot change human nature in a world of economic haves and have nots but it can change a culture that allows bad practice. And it can do so by setting an example from the top in a way that allows potential host cities to believe that they will not be left with substantial losses while the big sports feds of the IOC world bank substantial amounts of money (Rome and Montreal emerged in the red after recent world events - and they are not alone down the years, nor is swimming alone as a sport when it comes to whether hosts make money or not, more often than not). Those host cities need to know, in order to justify their decisions with voters in many cases, that there is a better way than a dubious business model that if adhered to in times of economic austerity will surely witness chickens coming home to roost.

So with a view to the world championships and the many gatherings of FINA in and out of competition and with a nod to some of the costs that hosts (sometimes FINA itself) are expected to cover, here is some food for thought for FINA folk who will need to gain the confidence of partners in a world tightening its belt:

• Is that long line of chauffeur-driven cars delivering Bureau members and others to the door of the pool, from hotel, restaurant, meeting, airport and even shopping mall a requirement? Answer - no. There is a case for some element of a car service, of course, but it can and should be scaled back, and made available to those who truly need it, such as hard-working staff. Bureau members all stay in the same hotel. So why not have them stick to a timetable, in the same way that athletes, coaches and media must, and turn up for the bus when travelling to and from venues (some already do just that). In doing so, they would not only save costs but learn a little about the coal face at their showcase event. Room for cutting that coat to suit the cloth.
• Are those many garments of clothing tailor-made for members of FINA Commissions and Committees necessary? For officials and leading officers, yes. For most of those receiving a uniform, no. Room for cutting that coat to suit the cloth.
• Are those goody bags necessary? Ties, clocks, watches, t-shirts, hats, books, pens, leather-bound this and thats, brief cases - and even a laptop for each Bureau member on one exclusive occasion.  No. Room for cutting that coat to suit the cloth.
• Are the shirts, the bags, the shoes from kit suppliers necessary for bureaucrats? No. Unseemly to say the least that in Rome2009 as kids queued for hours on end in some cases in a tunnel where the heat soared to 40C in order to borrow a used suit that they could never have afforded to buy themselves, there was free kit being handed over to men in blazers, in some cases in sizes more fitting to family members back home than themselves. Such costs, not insignificant to annual budgets, mean less for athletes, less for programmes, less attention to customer service at grass roots level, and so on and so forth. Room for cutting that coat to suit the cloth.
• Is 1st-class or business travel necessary? Sometimes, business class yes. First? Never justified. Where there is an important meeting at the end of a long journey on the way to a working environment, yes - to business. Where there are three free days before the none-too-arduous task of sitting in a congress and sticking a hand in the air now and again, where there is no real, professional role at the end of the journey, no. The latter applies to too many. These days, it is very rare to find media sitting in the hot seats. Teams don't either, for the most part. Businesses can't afford it. Bureaucrats wearing the label of non-profit organisations (for this applies too at domestic level) can, and do, and sometimes even on the same flights that find their national teams sitting in cattle class, the trappings of high life apparently irresistible.  Room for cutting that coat to suit the cloth.
• Is the full-board deal necessary? These days, when a journalist on many a leading publication travels to an event, his or her expenses stretch to one meal a day, and that often with a restriction of $20 or less, even when the meet takes place in a capital city where you wouldn't get much change for a coffee and a sandwich on that budget. Many a freelance journalist working through a 12 to 14-hour day must dig into his or her own pocket for sustenance - and then ends up eating junk for two weeks because there is no alternative by the time the deadline has been met, sometimes long after the last athlete to stop the clock has laid their head to rest, long after the After Eights are being served to FINA members. Is it really necessary to have three-course lunches and dinners in 5-star hotel restaurants every day for two weeks and more? No (and some do not avail themselves of such things, it should be noted). Room for cutting that coat to suit the cloth.
• Should partners expect to travel and stay and eat on the costs of FINA hosts? Should they expect a touristic tour from the hosts, a cultural programme to pursue. No. Through swimmers to coaches, media to many working officials, timing staff and professionals of many kinds at a world championship, how many have their partners with them? Few. Why? Because this is work. And those who do travel with a partner or have family come to support them know that that cost is covered by the family budget. Some argue that such things are the perks of what they see as something akin to a public service, the giving of their time for no financial reward. That view no longer holds water. Beyond it all being a choice, we live in tight times, we live at a time when the need to run sport on a professional basis is paramount. Most business trips are partner-free affairs, by necessity, and if a partner is to travel, that comes at no cost to the business in most cases. Room for cutting that coat to suit the cloth.
• No-one is suggesting that working officers and officials of FINA should pay their own way, but they should consider the modesty called for by the prevailing wind. Worth noting here that at a time of great debate and divide in FINA in the lead-up to the presidential vote in Rome, Julio Maglione, waving a flag for integrity, hosted a get-together of friends and supporters ... and he did so at his own cost. Example from the top. May there be more like it from the many not the few. 
• And on that note, what of the carbon footprint in swimming? Is it necessary to have delegates from up to 200 nations attend Congress and stay on for a two-week championship? Not in this day and age. There is an agenda. There are proposals to vote on. There are moments when it is appropriate to have all elected members come together. But an open, independently verifiable electronic voting form would be much cheaper than travel, hotel, full-board and freebies. Is it necessary to always have committees and commissions in the air and on the go to attend meetings far and wide? No. Conference calls and straightforward digital communication can be just as productive on most occasions. Room for cutting that coat to suit the cloth.
• Transparency. Could it be better? Yes. There is a view that officials are "volunteers". How many volunteers do you know who get luxury travel, accommodation and food thrown in on top of what for some is a healthy per diem that in many cases amounts to pocket money, given that all other costs are already covered? Such practice amounts to a fee, even a working wage in some cases at particular moments in time. Where a per diem is not needed, it ought not to be given. I once attended a "research" meeting at the invitation of the IOC with a colleague from The Australian, Nicole Jeffery, with permission from our newspapers. At the end of the meeting, a lady walked in with a briefcase and asked us to sign for our per diem, which would be handed to us in cash. What for, we asked? For your expenses, came the reply. We have no expenses - you're paying for the hotel and dinner. We declined the money and were regarded in the way a lunatic might be regarded as he prepared to fling himself off a bridge naked. Room for improvement and cutting that coat to suit the cloth.
• Is it necessary to have representatives from all FINA members at a world championship? FINA is already working on that, with qualification standards in the pipeline for future showcase events. Some argue that such moves dent the inclusive nature of FINA's mission. Yet the federation also deals in the business of rewarding exclusivity, that very essence of the bottom line of world sport. Is it time to look at what the world championships ought to mean? The concept to four per nation and two through to finals was suggested to Europe by Bill Sweetenham during his time in Britain. It has proved a very worthwhile exercise and has highlighted the divide between nations, made it more obvious where programmes really fit in the wider picture. A trawl down the result sheet can now show swimmer X in a final by virtue of finishing 12th in semis. 
• How good would it be to make the cut off for a world championship top 25 in the world by a given date, wherever the swimmer comes from? Nations would need to step up. And FINA would then need to work with regions and developing programmes on finding ways to to improve the lot of the lesser aquatic nations, in part by organising B and C grade world meets as a necessary graduation stop on the way to a top-flight world championship. Unfair? Not really, when you consider the number of world-class swimmers who rarely or never experienced the biggest-meet moments in international waters and have long had to sit at home and watch heat after heat of much slower folk taking part in the show they are locked out of by virtue of their birth. Does FINA have the balance of inclusivity and exclusivity right? Room for improvement and cutting that coat to suit the cloth ( for the best 25 in the world across all events would not require nearly as much support when it comes down to travel, hotels, food and sports science, their home programmes able to afford to foot a big part of the bill, leaving hosts to spend their money where it is most needed).

The latter represents one of the fundamental decisions that FINA faces as it tries to wed the worlds of 21st century swimming and a large membership of nations that have yet to reach the world that Doc Counsilman and Don Schollander and Co knew, that Forbes Carlile and Shane Gould knew, that Don Talbot and the Konrads siblings knew, and so on and so forth. 

If the above represent some of the areas FINA could look at as it considers a future in which it and its potential partners and hosts will have to live within their means, then in other areas there may be reason to extend the budget. 

Professionalism. Should it count for more? Yes. Why rely on "volunteers" on expenses to run the show? Why not move to a professional board that is still accountable to Congress and the wider membership of aquatic sports under the terms of a constitution better suited to the times we live in? Why place decisions such as those that saw the swimming world to and fro on suits last year in a few hands. The crisis, the whole of suit wars and the divisions that stemmed from it could have been avoided by deeper understanding and inclusive debate before something never seen in the race pool before was allowed to get wet. Professional relationships between FINA and partners call for a little, respectful, distance when it comes to judging the right direction for the sport.

A professional board would not only have ensured a wider debate but it would also have been held responsible for the consequences of its decisions. No-one in FINA ever stood up and said loud and clear "we got it wrong", the will of Congress the only thing that stopped the rot, will driven by the world superpower in swimming, the USA, almost alone for a while in being prepared to call out "Houston, we have a problem", even though it was a problem of its own making, to some extent. It takes courage to say "we took the wrong road, let's go back to the junction and make a wiser choice on our way to a better place".

Those who have had the chance to visit the FINA office in Lausanne come away with a common thought: the operation is much smaller than you would imagine it might be. That runs in the face of a bigger is better culture and is to the federation's credit, especially in light of the good work carried out by a small team at the heart of a big world. But is there room for a better set-up? Currently, Cornel Marculescu is the long-standing Executive Director. For many years a tireless campaigner in pursuit of a better deal for FINA sports, more money, more recognition, his plate is full, to say the least. Marculescu, recently honoured by the International Swimming Hall of Fame, turns 70 next year. 

It is important for FINA to discuss succession and not fall into a hole when the Romanian polyglot decides to take things easier. That is especially the case at a time when the current president is also committed to one term in office. Discussions on transfer, succession and legacy ought to play a part in a restructuring of an organisation that may soon need to consider having more than one director, the first and obvious move to divide (in a positive sense) swimming and open water swimming from the rest. If the expertise required is different for each of FINA's disciplines, then so too are the needs, the level of interest, the paths that each sport must take in order to maintain or find a better place in the pecking order of world sport. Many challenges ahead.

Professionalism at board level would also bring with it a recognition that professionalism in the services required by FINA is paramount. Recently, the federation has tendered out its magazine to a Hungarian publishing outfit, for example, in an effort to modernise and extend its "in-house" coverage of the sport. The deal does not represent full out-sourcing in one sense: the man at the helm is Tamas Gyarfas, a member of the FINA Bureau. The magazine is now following a similar journey to that taken by LEN's publication in Europe: it pays for professional journalists to make contributions in writing and editing so that higher standards may be observed. 

In contrast, the in-house world rankings lag behind the real world. Recently, FINA rejected a move to follow LEN in spending money on an out-of-house digitalised database service. Wise move. As Nick Thierry, with his own astonishing database at SwimNews, one dating back decades, would tell you: it takes daily graft and human intervention to deliver the most reliable and most updated ranking on the planet - and it takes know-how, the ability to spot a rogue result at 50 paces and much more. It is not purely an administrative task, a digital dumping ground.

The coaching world is also full of experienced heads who have long had to struggle to have their voices heard in the corridors of FINA power (with terrible delays in dealing with urgent issues, such as doping, without a one of those fights that ought never to have been necessary). That situation is improving, thanks to better working relationships between FINA and coaches and a commitment from President Maglione to lean on professionals in future more than FINA's ruling class has done in the past. Perhaps there will come a time when prize money extends to coaches too. If the swimmer wins $50,000, why should the man or woman by his or her side not be rewarded in the way that Bob Bowman is rewarded for his key role in delivering the soaring notes of Michael Phelps's career. The relationship is a professional one. 

The need to tighten belts coincides with the need to shift emphasis when it comes to deciding how to spend FINA money and how to ask hosts to spend theirs. As FINA members prepare for their pilgrimage to Uruguay, they need to be bold and brave - and to banish fear of telling it like it is, no matter how uncomfortable, if only for the sake of healthy debate that brings about lasting and worthwhile change. 

Those travelling delegates also need to replace the concept of "big" thoughts with "smart" thoughts, which includes resisting an urge to reinvent the wheel on the whim and bottom-line ambitions of marketeers, merchandisers, publicists and other players (some who will undoubtedly have made a date in their diaries to be in Uruguay come September) who have long regarded the amateur roots of aquatic sports and prevailing practices that are unsuited for the world that lies ahead as a place for rich pickings.