Skip to content
Sign In Subscribe
articles — integrity — european aquatics — antonio silva — paolo barelli — government inquiry — ipdj — fpn — fin — portugal — italy — cas — aqiu — aquatics integrity unit — whistleblowers — alexandra jorge — marc cavaliero

The circle of life on Olympic Heights

The next chapters in the integrity saga surrounding the presidents of European Aquatics, the old and the new: António Silva gives a largely strange, world record-breakingly long interview to save his presidency, while Paolo Barelli claims a legal victory before the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

,   and  Craig Lord
7 min read
Gigantically long, partly weird: the interview with António Silva in A Bola. (Screenshot)

Updated with the Aquatics Integrity Unit's express decision in Silva's favour - against the whistleblower's information and apparently also despite Portuguese legislation.

The small avalanche of screaming headlines atop acres of coverage on an integrity scandal could easily have fooled one into thinking that Portugal's leading sports paper had unearthed a scoop at the very heart of its main mission: A Bola.

We were surely looking at the ugly side of the beautiful game.

A two-page Q&A, headlines horrors such as "They want to attack me, see me stretched out on the ground. Dead"; "They wanted to prevent me from running for head of the National Olympic Committee ..."; "There is an objectively persecutory attitude on the part of the IPDJ and its president towards me".

What!? Not football! Well, must be something up the high-octane end of world sport.

This post is for subscribers only

Subscribe

Already have an account? Sign In

Related

Is Hockey president Tayyab Ikram collecting hundreds of thousands of dollars in illegal commissions from the Olympic Solidarity fund?
integrity artists

Is Hockey president Tayyab Ikram collecting hundreds of thousands of dollars in illegal commissions from the Olympic Solidarity fund?

The corruption allegations against the president of the Fédération Internationale de Hockey (FIH) are serious and bizarre. The case affects not only the FIH, but also OCA, as well as the IOC's core business: Olympic Solidarity. And here, as with several other IFs, the IOC is not taking action.

,   and  Jens Weinreich
Members Public

Latest

Is Hockey president Tayyab Ikram collecting hundreds of thousands of dollars in illegal commissions from the Olympic Solidarity fund?
integrity artists

Is Hockey president Tayyab Ikram collecting hundreds of thousands of dollars in illegal commissions from the Olympic Solidarity fund?

The corruption allegations against the president of the Fédération Internationale de Hockey (FIH) are serious and bizarre. The case affects not only the FIH, but also OCA, as well as the IOC's core business: Olympic Solidarity. And here, as with several other IFs, the IOC is not taking action.

,   and  Jens Weinreich
Members Public