Pay for athletes urged

Press, 9 April 1979, Page 21

Pay for athletes urged

NZPA London International track and field should put hypocrisy behind it. and put the sport on a logical basis by paying leading athletes, said the sportswriter, Terry O’Connor, in the “Daily Mail” recently. O’Connor, who has been covering “amateur” athletics since the 1948 London Olympic Games was commenting on the revelations made by the former world record high jumper, Dwight Stones, who said he had been paid $196,000 for competing at meetings in London between 1973 and 1976. The claim is now being investigated by a special committee of the' British Amateur Athletic Board, alongside an inquiry into detailed reports of payments to athletes at last year’s Highland Games, in Edinburgh. The committee’s findings are due to be published next month. “Everyone in athletics

| knows leading competitors are well paid at invitation (meetings throughout the world,” said O’Connor “Stones’s confession is one of many which have been made.” Guy Drut, the Frenchman who won the 110 metres hurdles at the Montreal Olympics, is another leading performer who has said he was paid as an amateur. He has now been banned for life. The general secretary of the London-based International Amateur Athletic Federation (1.A.A.F.), John Holt, told the NZPA he was aware of Stones’s comments and that it was the responsibility of the 8.A.A.8. to investigate them. He said he did not think it likely that the sport’s amateur rules would be overhauled before next year’s Moscow Olympics. O’Connor said that the illegal payments are the only way that invitation meetings

— often organised by private individuals — can pros- I per. After the Moscow games, he suggested, athletics should follow tennis in ridding itself of under-the- 1 counter payments. “The problem of the future of the Olympics would then arise — for athletics is the foundation of the games,” he said. “Perhaps they too would go open. “Instead of continuing i with the hypocrisy, the < I.A.A.F. should accept that : illegal payments cannot be ] stamped out and put the sport on a logical basis.” 1 Stones said he was paid : for jumping at Crystal Pal- ] ace meets organised by the 1 International Athletes Club (1.A.C.) and sponsored by , Coca-Cola. The I.C.A. chairman, the former 10,000 m world record holder, David Bedford, denied it. “There , has been no indication of any under-the-counter payments to athletes,” he said."

Coca-Cola’s public relations officer, Peter Hunt, said that the function of his company was to provide a lump sum for the meet promoters and leave them to do the organising.