Bri­an Lewis

The year 2015 is about to say bye bye. What a tu­mul­tuous 12 months it has been.For most sport fans, their mem­o­rable mo­ments would sur­round the FI­FA scan­dal and the IAAF rev­e­la­tions re­gard­ing Rus­sia.Both sto­ries stole the thun­der from the many out­stand­ing achieve­ments on the field.

Clos­er to home, the FI­FA de­ba­cle touched the Caribbean.On­go­ing gov­er­nance is­sues with­in lo­cal na­tion­al sport or­gan­i­sa­tions made it cen­tre stage.The ma­jor­i­ty of fans found them­selves in a frame of mind where they did not dif­fer­en­ti­ate but made the as­sump­tion that the acts of a com­par­a­tive few had taint­ed all.

It is left to be seen how the sport world will straight­en things out.The In­ter­na­tion­al Olympic Com­mit­tee (IOC) is heav­i­ly pro­mot­ing its agen­da 2020 em­pha­sis on the im­por­tance of good gov­er­nance, link­ing the is­sue to the au­ton­o­my of sport or­gan­i­sa­tions.

In­side of the Ba­sic Prin­ci­ples of Good Gov­er­nance for Sports Or­gan­i­sa­tions, trans­paren­cy is key.The IOC is tak­ing the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to im­ple­ment with­in its own gov­er­nance in­creased trans­paren­cy.

One of the mea­sures the IOC has in­tro­duced as part of its en­hanced trans­paren­cy is its in­dem­ni­ty pol­i­cy for the IOC mem­bers and the IOC pres­i­dent.The pol­i­cy is in ac­cord with the sta­tus of the IOC as a not-for-prof­it or­gan­i­sa­tion and that of the IOC mem­ber, in­clud­ing the IOC pres­i­dent.

Be­cause of the vol­un­teer sta­tus, the prin­ci­ple ap­plied is that the IOC mem­bers and pres­i­dent should not fi­nan­cial­ly ben­e­fit from their po­si­tions.

There are oth­er con­sid­er­a­tions spe­cif­ic to the role of IOC pres­i­dent that come in­to play in­clud­ing a recog­ni­tion that ac­cord­ing to the oblig­a­tions and rights at­trib­uted to the IOC pres­i­dent in the Olympic Char­ter, the role has the func­tion of that re­quired 365 days a year com­mit­ment.

The main point in high­light­ing the par­tic­u­lar mat­ter of in­creas­ing trans­paren­cy is the sug­ges­tion that a lack of trans­paren­cy would have been a con­tribut­ing fac­tor to the year of scan­dals in sport.Im­prov­ing sport gov­er­nance will re­main a pri­or­i­ty for the T&T Olympic Com­mit­tee (TTOC) in 2016.

The IOC'S role in­cludes the fol­low­ing:

�2 Lead the fight to pro­tect clean ath­letes

�2 En­cour­age and pro­mote ethics and good gov­er­nance in sport

�2 Pro­mote sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment

�2 Sup­port ef­forts to pro­vide for the so­cial and pro­fes­sion­al fu­ture of ath­letes

�2 Op­pose po­lit­i­cal or com­mer­cial abuse of ath­letes

�2 En­cour­age and sup­port mea­sures re­lat­ed to the med­ical care and health of ath­letes

�2 Act against any form of dis­crim­i­na­tion af­fect­ing the Olympic Move­ment

�2 En­sure the reg­u­lar cel­e­bra­tion of the Olympic Games.

To ad­vance these goals, the IOC is tak­ing a num­ber of ac­tions, in­clud­ing en­act­ing re­forms to pro­tect the unique sta­tus of the Olympic Games. The changes and re­forms have seen a greater em­pha­sis on trans­paren­cy and good gov­er­nance.The TTOC is du­ty bound to so do.This evening the TTOC will host its An­nu­al Awards Gala. The cer­e­mo­ny will be held at the Hy­att Re­gency Ho­tel Ball­room, Port-of-Spain. Start time is 6 pm.

Bri­an Lewis is the pres­i­dent of the T&T Olympic Com­mit­tee (TTOC). The views ex­pressed are not nec­es­sar­i­ly those of the Olympic Com­mit­tee. Sup­port #TeamT­TO ath­letes. Buy #TeamT­TO T-shirts at any branch of Fan Club. All pro­ceeds go to @TTOlympic #10 Golds24 Ath­lete Wel­fare and Prepa­ra­tion Fund.