Adam Peaty said, "Athletes should be at the heart of any decision made by our governing body."GETTY IMAGES
The world of swimming is "about to undergo a financial revolution," with swimmers such as Adam Peaty being offered the opportunity to earn up to $5M a year, according to Craig Lord of the SUNDAY TIMES. However, Ukrainian tycoon Konstantin Grigorishin faces opposition from FINA "as he attempts to do for the sport what Kerry Packer did for cricket." A "furious" Peaty said that that FINA's stance "will simply galvanise athletes." Grigorishin has already announced plans for an Int'l Swimming League, which he intends to launch next year, but he also "wants to see the revolution in the pool extended to an overhaul" that would result in Olympic champions earning $3M for gold, $2M for silver and $1M for bronze. In a sport that is populated by what the World Swimming Coaches Association described as "the downtrodden victims of modern slavery," you would have imagined that Grigorishin would have been "welcomed with open arms" by FINA. But that is not how it has happened. The financier of the ISL intends to sue FINA if the governing body stands "in the way of turning swimmers into highly paid sportsmen and women." There is little wonder that the athletes are "queuing up." Peaty is among 50 swimmers, including 11 other Olympic champions and 12 world champions, who have "already pledged their support for the league." Grigorishin "scoffs at the treatment of swimmers." He said that they are treated "like experimental laboratory rats, with risks to their health" and with "no salary, social guarantees, no welfare, no medical and life insurance, no pension rights, no insurance." The head of the Energy Standard Group registered the ISL in Switzerland "on the doorstep" of the IOC and FINA. He is "heartened but not surprised," he said, to find athletes "queuing for a new start" while Olympic and swimming bureaucrats line up to crush a challenge to their "self-serving monopoly" (SUNDAY TIMES, 11/18).
