British Olympic Association CEO BILL SWEENEY has been in charge of the organization since ’13. Prior to joining the BOA, he was SVP of global apparel, training and regional sports at adidas and more recently head of global business development at Puma. As Team GB prepares for the upcoming Summer Games in Rio de Janeiro, Sweeney spoke to SBD Global about partnering with fashion designer STELLA MCCARTNEY, what to expect from the Rio 2016 kit design and the ongoing battle against doping in sport.
On Team GB’s partnership with adidas ...
Bill Sweeney: The relationship with adidas goes back a long time. I think it goes back into the 1980s somewhere. So that’s a longstanding partnership and it’s a very important one for us here at the British Olympic Association. A sportswear partner who can supply product across multiple sports, summer and winter -- there aren’t many companies like that in the world. So it makes them incredibly important to us from that perspective. We are their biggest Olympic asset by a long way. We’re their only all-federation or all-sport deal that they have now. So they invest an awful lot into the relationship with Team GB. They invest in innovation, research and development around products they want to test and showcase in the Olympic Games.
On teaming with McCartney to design the Olympic kit ...
Sweeney: We felt that given her status as one of the U.K.’s leading fashion stylists and fashion icons, to have her be the creative director for Team GB going into our home games in 2012, we thought was a very powerful story. When it was launched, the public really got behind that. She brought a very unique and fresh look -- quite controversial look -- to the lineup for 2012. It was a high use of blue. Her interpretation of the Union flag was quite controversial and it gained a lot of exposure, media attention and consumer attention. And the result was that the sales of the product were by far and away our best ever. Hopefully, you expect that when you’re in your home Games environment. We continue with that relationship through 2016. Stella has designed a new range of kit for us for Rio. We’ve been involved with her all along the process and concept design, prototype and development process. We’re really excited for what she’s come up with this time. We actually think she’s gone one step ahead again over what we had in 2012 and we’re expecting to have some sort of strong reaction to the product when it’s released for 2016 as well.
On what to expect to see in Team GB’s Rio kit ...
Sweeney: One of the unique attributes about Team GB, and perhaps it’s a bit of a reflection of the unique characteristic of the United Kingdom, it’s one of the rare occasions where you get the four countries coming together and combining for competition. So we’re very much an inclusive brand. We’re very much a unifying brand. We bring people together. In our brief to adidas and Stella, we have said for 2016, we want a strong nationalistic theme to it, in the right way. A theme that enables people to celebrate being British, to celebrate the coming together of the four home countries and to recreate the feeling of momentum and excitement that existed around 2012. Having that nationalistic component we believe is important. The other aspect is that we want to have an authentic sport performance story going on there. We don’t want to stray off that too far. We want the product, even if used for casual purposes, to have a strong tie-in and connection to sport. I would say those are the two main things. Make sure we don’t lose the sport connection and make sure we are flying the national flag in some shape.
On the London 2017 organizing committee's managerial shakeups ...
Sweeney: It’s not really our responsibility, or our area of interest to be honest. Clearly we want to see a successful World Championships in 2017. It’s a major event and it’s in our home territory, so our interest is to make sure that it’s a successfully run event. We don’t have a point of view, that’s really more to do with the IAAF and UK Sport. It’s up to them to make sure that the right structures are in place to make sure it’s a successful event. We wouldn’t have a position on that other than to say that we would love to see a great 2017 World Championships.
On criminalizing doping in sport ...
Sweeney: The British Olympic Association has always called for the most stringent, punitive sanctions possible when it comes to doping and the use of illegal substances for performance-enhancing reasons. We’re totally committed to clean sport, to clean athletes to make sure that the playing field is a level playing field and it’s a fair competition. Not least of all because of the potential harm and damage it does to athletes themselves. If you go back, one of the strongest proponents of that over time has been [IAAF President] SEBASTIAN COE himself and he has always called for the most stringent of measures. I think when you get into the criminalization of athletes you get into some quite dangerous and difficult territories and you need to be very careful about how that can be applied. I think if you are talking about criminalization, it should possibly be more related to those who are facilitating doping, whether they’re influences or whether they’re trafficking in illegal substances. But I think you have to be very careful before you start talking about imprisoning athletes because there are many factors at play.
On the outlook for Rio 2016 ...
Sweeney: We’re looking forward to going there. We think it will be a great Games. We think the venues will be ready on time. Of course there will be challenges, whether it’s around logistics, operations and so on, but we think it will be a tremendous Games. We’ve been there a lot in the last 18 months, the people of Rio are very excited by it and I think it will be a combination of Olympics meets carnival. We’re expecting it to be a memorable and very successful event.
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