Chapter 11 Democracy, Karate & WKF Politics Unfortunately the administration of international sports has in recent years hit the headlines for the wrong reasons, namely mismanagement and corruption. Corruption is reference to the unethical manipulation of democratic rules by a few in pursuit of autocratic authority for partisan agendas, financial or otherwise. Often the logical consequences are executive actions expending assets owned by all for a few. The lack of transparency and manipulation of the democratic process facilitates such phenomena. Where there is “big money” there is “big corruption” and vice-versa. The WKF has not joined the “big leagues” of money yet, but vigilance now may save us from developing an incremental track record leading to much bigger ills later. Most of all preventive vigilance now may prevent us from falling into the abyss of a culture of corruption later, as have most of the “big league” IOC-member international sports federations. The public is to blame for often tolerating blatant desecrations of established democratic rules by leadership with a hidden agenda paraded as the “common good” (“end justifies means” argument) so long as no one is caught “with his hand in the cookie jar”. We must never forget what history tells us, which is that in almost all cases the tolerance of “harmless” political corruption of people in pursuit of more power lays the foundation for eventual financial corruption “as a way of doing business”. In other words corruption that does not involve money but mere “power-grabbing” eventually graduates to becoming corruption that does involve money and more “power-grabbing”. Although the world is more familiar with IOC corruption related to the selection of host-cities (the scandals that emerged out in the open at Salt Lake City Winter Olympics) and broadcasting rights, there are many other lesser known areas of IOC corrupt and unethical practices that have inflicted long term damage to this institution and her consumers, the world community of nations. We would like to review here some of these lesser known “infractions”. One cannot talk of the WKF without a review of her “parent body” the IOC. This is mainly because so much has occurred within the IOC that the WKF may unfortunately be modeling herself after; this essentially in pursuit of autocratic leadership. Even more pertinent is the fact that in this pursuit of power the WKF leadership has clearly based her 2006 revised Statutes on the Olympic Charter (especially articles over national sovereignty), but has chosen to omit the most important clause that came out of the Samaranch-era scandal reforms dealing with term-limits for the Presidency and the Executive Board. Even though the WKF leadership has adopted some aspects of the Olympic Charter through a careful “pick and choose” policy, one cannot talk of the WKF without a pertinent review of her “parent” body the IOC, which even after ten years of the reforms of 1999 and the post-Samaranch era of Jacques Rogge continues to be regarded as a highly “closed” organization (see the ‘Global Accountability Report/GAR released in December 2008 by one of the world’s leading global governance think tanks, the One World Trust). The WKF’s painful experience with a corrupt IOC was clearly revealed over her 14-year ordeal to seek IOC recognition as the sole international federation representing sports karate. This ordeal dealt with in detail earlier exposed the corrupt inner-workings of the IOC leadership under Samaranch with regards to the IOC recognition process for new sports and their international federations. “Forcing” a WKF that represented more than 95% of the world’s national karate governing bodies to deal with the one-man show organization the ITKF on equal terms was nothing short of “criminal” ethical misconduct favoring a senior member of the IOC Executive Board Un Yong Kim who was also then President of the World Taekwondo Federation (WTF), Korean Olympic Committee and the Korean Sports Council. The proper ethical conduct would have been for Samaranch to ask for Kim to step aside temporarily or step down because of the clear appearance of a conflict of interest, involving the WTF. This never happened and as Andrew Jennings says, “karate got screwed” because the “devil” sat in-house to inflict maximum damage every time the karate case of recognition came up before the IOC Executive Board. We believe that the greatest corruption ever within the IOC is that which involved the blatant relegation of athletes and women to a junior role with little or no political power, a policy and practice that sad to say is even more pronounced in the WKF. Athletes in whose name the 1 Olympic Games are held were pushed aside as political people jostled for power, prestige and the wealth that this brings with it. This is a “sinful design” of the past which President Rogge although a Samaranch “pick” and ex-Olympian is “desperately” trying to fix in his last term in office. The root of this “evil” can once again be traced to the IOC’s disdain for national sovereignty and her efforts to impinge on this at every opportunity. Just as IOC members are considered IOC “possessions” and not representatives of NOCs/nations, the IOC is of the view that athletes at the Olympic Games are competing for themselves and a “world community” and not for their countries. It is a little known fact that it is for this reason that the IOC does not keep a medal- count by nations at any Games. It is rather strange for the IOC to encourage such egotistical individualism to combat national pride that athletes feel so strongly about, “instinctively”. No international organization can replace this umbilical link between athlete and the nation. The shift in focus from athletes to officialdom coincided with the politics of big money and a bigger organization. While this process was gradual, it really culminated under the Samaranch Presidency (even though the Athletes Commission was established in 1981) when the IOC was awash with all kinds of problems, ranging from the scandalous raising of the age-limit for Presidential service to suit you know who, to “rigging” the host-city bidding process, to name a few. While President Rogge has in an unprecedented manner invited athletes to take their proper place on “center-stage”, only fuller statutory-representation with voting rights in the IOC Executive Board will seat them in their proper place and make amends for past injustices. Given the long past of pushing athletes aside, “compensations” cannot be made fast enough. The general perception is that for too long IOC athletes have been used as mere fodder for the entertainment of the world’s economic and political elites every 4 years, just like in Roman times. This is another reason why we must do everything possible to “cleanse” the Olympic organization of her elitist cum exclusive image. On par with this “disenfranchisement” of athletes is the encroachment made on national sovereignty by the IOC Olympic Charter, in stipulating that IOC members are not national representatives but rather IOC “staff” in their homeland. Using the excuse that sports must be kept clean of politics, the infringements on national sovereignty only increased with time to a point where the IOC was in competition with national governments for the allegiance of citizens, as if it was also a government of some sort, beyond sports. The most recent expression of this political “pretension” was the banning of the Iraqi government-established NOC weeks before the 2008 Beijing Olympics, and then a quick conditional reinstatement that allowed Iraqi athletes to compete at the Games. More recently the IOC has taken action (as per Olympic Charter Rule 28.9) to suspend the NOC of Kuwait effective August 1 st 2009 to protect the Olympic movement of the country from supposedly “interference by Kuwaiti public authorities”. This “flexing of muscles” by the IOC was a clear challenge to national governments that fortunately for the Iraqi athletes was resolved on time. The fact of the matter is that every NOC must comply with national laws before they can even be formed (as an example, laws relating to the registration of societies), and therefore the ultimate in authority over NOCs cannot lie with the IOC irrespective of what the Olympic Charter says. Rule 28.9 is an insult to the sanctity of national sovereignty and must be dealt with by individual nations in concert with the United Nations. A private international sports organization such as is the IOC cannot hide behind vague ideals of “Olympism”, to threaten the sovereignty of the nation state. National Olympic Committees like any other civic organization is bound by national laws (need we be reminded that NOC funds are for the most part from government budgets). Imagine pressuring national governments to enact NOC-friendly national laws pertaining to civic organizations? It is also a great injustice that the IOC sanctions/expels NOC’s for “problems” originating from the national governments, including the withholding of funds (see IOC Press release of 6/16/09 on the impending expulsion of Kuwait). I guess the only way they can punish national governments is by punishing NOC’s and their athletes, as was almost done to the Iraqi athletes headed for Beijing. It is hoped that such actions “on their own” will hurt national governments into concessions. There is a contradiction here. On the one hand NOC’s are considered extensions of the IOC “family” in countries the world over, but on the other hand they are hurt to get to their national governments. The IOC Charter pits citizens against their own national governments and laws.