I.O.C. opens door for professionals

Press, 14 February 1986, Page 32

I.O.C. opens door for professionals

NZPA-Reuter Lausanne The executive board of the International Olympic Committee has backed a proposal to throw open the summer and winter games to all athletes, including professionals. The 11-member board endorsed a plan to give “professional and State athletes the same opportunity,” said the 1.0. C. president, Juan Antonio Samaranch. This was a reference to professional athletes in Western and South American countries, many of whom are barred from Olympic competition, and the state athletes maintained by Communist bloc countries for the Olympics. The proposal by the Olympic Eligibility Committee will be submitted to a 91-nation General Assembly which will decide on the issue In Lausanne in October.

Olympic officials said they expected the assembly to adopt the proposal and amend the Olympic Charter eligibility rule with immediate effect.

The various international sporting federations would then have to decide whether to change their rules to permit the professionals to compete, the officials said.

“If the change is adopted we will tell the international sports federations that we will accept for Olympic competition all athletes which they propose,” Mr Samaranch said. “It will then ’be up to them to decide.”

The move would put pressure on the various

F.I.F.A. bars from Olympic competition players over 23 years of age and all South American and European players who have competed In the World Cup finals.

federations to remove restrictions which prevent professional athletes from competing in the Olympics, official sources said. The International Football Federation (F.1.F.A.), soccer’s world governing body, and the International Ice Hockey Federation, which governs ice hockey players, impose age restrictions and bar World Cup or National Hockey League players from Olympic competition. The board specifically approved accepting all soccer, ice hockey and tennis players, Mr Samaranch said. Tennis will return as an Olympic sport at the 1988 Seoul Games for the first time since the 1924 Games in Paris. The proposed amendment to the Olympic Charter would cover eligibility for athletes in all sports. The International Tennis Federation, for instance, would have to decide whether to allow leading professionals to compete in the 1988 Seoul Games, an official said. The first big test of the proposal would be a meeting of F.LF.A. in Mexico next May, Mr Samaranch said. The 1.0. C. will be looking to see whether soccer’s world governing body will agree to release players with professional clubs to play for their national teams at the 1988 Olympics.