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the 200 countries in the world. They give us a lot of money. We might ask that a
part of that money be transformed into the hiring of young, very well prepared
athletes at the end of their carrier on their own subsidiaries. And there are many
things we can do. We have also the World Association of Olympians - this is the
association of everyone who has been at the Olympic Games - we have eighty
thousand members around the world. This is a huge network. Most of these
Olympians have succeeded in life. They have businesses, they have relations,
and they can help athletes. But, to this day, we have never done this. And that is
something that we have to do. It is our responsibility.
The third challenge is definitely to bridge the gap between the athletes and
the clubs. There is more and more a gap growing between the elite athlete and
his governing body. Athletes, nowadays, are either professionals or trained like
professionals. Top athletes today will train four to six hours a day. They will train
seven days a week and they are very demanding, and rightfully so. They want
the best coach, they want a very good doctor, they want good training camps,
and they deserve that. The problem is that, in most clubs or Federations, it is still
volunteers who work. And I am a volunteer myself. And I believe that sport
should continue to be run by volunteers, because they are the huge skeleton of
this pyramid of sport, and no country in the world could afford to decide that sport
in the future, the clubs and the Federations, should be run by professionals.
It is just unaffordable. And volunteers will be the future of sport. But, at a certain
level, volunteers have to understand that they must be able to give to the athlete
the services and the quality of services that they are not able to give themselves.
And they then have to apply to a limited number of professionals who can then
discuss with the athletes and take care of the athletes. A volunteer has a job. He
can devote one or two hours a day to his club or federation. But the athletes need
six to eight hours. So, that gap must be reduced.
The problem that is emerging, because of this difference in what volunteers
can give and what athletes request, is that many athletes then tend to create
their own private structures. We see this in many sports, in track and field. We see
this also, on a different level, in tennis, where the professional tennis players
decided to regroup themselves, to create a union. The ATP, association of tennis
professionals, is running the calendar of the international tennis competitions,
with the exception of the Grand Slams and the Davis Cup. But all the tournaments
are organised by the players themselves, and the international federations
have only a very limited control over that. They still control the rules of the games,
but not their organisation. Now, in tennis, that works well. In other sports, we
are seeing problems. In the professional sports in the United States, the players'
associations are becoming trade unions, and they have then conflicts with the club
owners and the people leading the sport. And this has led to strikes. In baseball,
in American football, in ice hockey, we had very long strikes, when the players
did not want to play any more.
And then we have the problem of the breakaway leagues, and the breakaway
leagues are definitely a problem threatening sport. It is different. It is not the
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