IOC voices open to amending charter to keep Thomas Bach as president

Editor’s note: This article was written by Rachel Axon and first appeared in Sports Business Journal, the industry’s leading source of sports business news, events and data.

After International Olympic Committee members floated the idea of amending their charter to grant Thomas Bach another term as president, he didn’t tip his hand publicly on whether he wants to stay in the job.

But after 12 years of Bach leading the IOC, it’s likely he has the support to make such a move happen if he wants to pursue that path. To do so, the IOC and Bach would challenge reforms put in place after the Salt Lake City bid scandal in 1999 that were meant to promote good governance and included a 12-year presidential term limit. Such a move would thwart potential challengers.

“My sense would be that it’s essentially his decision because he can cut it off very easily if he wants to,” said Dick Pound, a longtime IOC executive and now an honorary IOC member who has been involved in the Olympic movement for more than six decades. “On the other hand, if he wants to continue, he can probably get done what needs to be done as far as the charter is concerned. It’ll be an interesting piece of theater to watch.”

Bach, 69, was first elected to an eight-year term in 2013 and re-elected to a four-year term in 2021. His tenure is set to expire in 2025. The IOC set age limits preventing current members from continuing after they turn 70, with the possibility of a one-time extension of four years. To pursue another term, Bach would need IOC members to amend the charter he helped write.

During the IOC’s annual session, held last week in Mumbai, Algeria’s Mustapha Berraf raised the issue of Bach being given an additional term. In his floor speech, Berraf said the notion had the support of the Association of National Olympic Committees of Africa, for which he is the president.

In a time of “great division in the world,” keeping Bach on would “allow the IOC to go through this period of torment with a president who has proved his mettle,” Berraf said.

Several IOC members voiced their support.

Bach neither shot down the notion nor bolstered the idea. A day after that session, he said those members put forth the idea because of a concern about a presidential campaign harming preparations for Paris — something they did not voice in the session.

Bach said it was a sign of mutual respect not to dismiss the idea out of hand in the media.

“I will always have a passion and I always had a passion for the Olympic movement, and this is independent of any office I am having in the IOC,” said Bach, an Olympic gold medalist in fencing and former president of the German Olympic Sports Confederation (DOSB). “I made it clear how loyal I am to the Olympic charter and having been a co-author of the Olympic charter, I also speak for the fact that I am thinking term limits are making a lot of sense and are necessary.”

Jacques Rogge, whom Bach succeeded as president, served a 12-year term under the post-Salt Lake City reforms before leaving office.

While telling Bach, “I love you,” during the session, International Gymnastics Federation President Morinari Watanabe cautioned that Bach “guided us all that the sports organizations must follow rules and have high integrity under good governance.”

Any change to the charter would need to be submitted to the IOC 30 days in advance of a session where members could vote on it. Pound said potential challengers could try to defeat such an amendment.

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What exists of such campaigns has yet to emerge publicly. Speculation has focused on four candidates: IOC vice presidents Nicole Hoevertsz of Aruba and Spain’s Juan Antonio Samaranch Jr., whose father led the IOC for 21 years, from 1980-2001; Zimbabwe sports minister Kirsty Coventry, an Olympic gold-medalist swimmer who sits on the executive board and is seen as a Bach protégé; and World Athletics President Sebastian Coe.

Coe’s résumé makes him a noteworthy candidate on paper — an Olympic gold medalist for Great Britain, longtime sport administrator and politician who led a successful Games in London in 2012. At the world championships in August, Coe said he hadn’t ruled in or out a run for the top Olympic position.

In July, Wasserman acquired CSM Sport & Entertainment, which was chaired by Coe. The move would help address conflict-of-interest issues if Coe were to pursue the IOC presidency.

He became an IOC member in 2020, and that would be set to expire in 2026, when he turns 70. At 67, Coe would be foreclosed from running if Bach received another term.

Bach did not quash the idea in several questions from the press following the session, and he will face more at the IOC’s executive board meeting next month in Paris.

The members’ suggestions that he stay could serve as a trial balloon just as the then-unprecedented decision to award two Olympics at once to Paris in 2024 and Los Angeles in 2028 was floated before the IOC moved forward, said Heather Dichter, associate professor of sport management and sport history at De Montfort University’s International Centre for Sports History and Culture.

“Any time Thomas Bach has kind of wanted something and it needed investigation and changing the IOC’s processes … those seem to always pass,” Dichter said. “If there is an interest in doing this, I wouldn’t be surprised to see it pass with a high level of support.”