CAS Finds "Anti-Bribery, Anti-Corruption" Violations in 2024 World Triathlon Election Run-Up

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Originally published at: CAS Finds “Anti-Bribery, Anti-Corruption” Violations in 2024 World Triathlon Election Run-Up - Slowtwitch News

The Court for Arbitration for Sport (CAS) has ruled that a member World Triathlon’s Executive Board committed anti-bribery and anti-corruption infractions in the lead up to last year’s vote to install current President Antonio Arimany.

Liber Garcia, who serves as President of the Uruguayan Triathlon Federation and Americas Triathlon, was found to have breached World Triathlon’s Anti-Bribery and Anti-Corruption Policy, Code of Ethics, and Code of Conduct for his actions during the 2024 World Triathlon election.

However, CAS also ruled that the infraction was so minor as to reduce Garcia’s sanction from a year suspension from his role with World Triathlon to a warning.

How’d We Get Here?

The case stems from the 2024 World Triathlon election cycle, which involved the election of a new President, Vice Presidents, and Executive Board members.

One of the candidates, then-President of the Australian Triathlon Federation and Oceania Triathlon, Michelle Cooper, contacted Garcia about the forthcoming election via WhatsApp in September 2024. During the course of the conversation, Garcia insinuated that “we have a strong agreement between Africa, Asia, and America” and “the president that we support will be elected.”

Garcia went further, asking Cooper to step down as a candidate for President: “It’s for you to step down as president and we’ll support you to stay on the board.” A day later, Garcia was emphatic: “In Vichy, you would have to announce that you are withdrawing and…support our candidate who is from Europe!”

Cooper filed a complaint with World Triathlon, alleging the breach of rules by Garcia. World Triathlon decided that the case, at the time, was insufficient to halt elections. Arimany was elected with 90 votes. Ian Howard of British Triathlon finished second, with 29 votes. Cooper, who did not receive votes for President, was also not elected to a Vice President, nor re-elected to her Executive Board role.

In March of this year, World Triathlon’s Tribunal issued a decision, confirming that Garcia had violated the respective code of conduct and ethics policies, and issued a suspension. Garcia appealed that decision to CAS, asking for a review of both the underlying case as well as the penalty.

The CAS arbitration panel upheld the Tribunal conclusion that Garcia had violated the policies, which read, in part: “For a Corruption Offense to be committed, it is sufficient that an offer or solicitation was made, regardless of whether any money, benefit, or consideration was actually paid or received.” CAS concluded that Garcia’s WhatsApp messages, where he offered Cooper re-election support on the Board in exchange for her dropping out of the proceeding, violated this rule.

However, the CAS panel also found the sanction levied by World Triathlon to be “excessive.” In the ruling, the panel was persuaded that Garcia “did not use any particularly aggressive tone in the messages he sent,” that there was no financial benefit extended to Cooper to drop out, and that the violation had only occurred once. It therefore overturned Garcia’s suspension, reducing his penalty to a warning.

The panel did not come to any other conclusions regarding the elections themselves. Arimany will hold the presidency until the 2028 election.

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Of all the corruption and horse trading that I assume happens behind the scenes this one feels like a big nothing burger.

Why can’t delegates/members/whatever talk to each other about who they support and then communicate that support to others?

I understand very well the need for open meetings and for decisions about policy and action taken to be on the record. But surely it’s ok for 10 voters to talk to each other about which candidate they will support off the record as long as they make their decisions on the record?

Telling someone you’ll support them as a board member but not as president in a private message is not a sign of coercion or corruption but communicating your view point to them.

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The problem is that Garcia basically said “we will give you our support to remain on the Board only if you drop out of the presidential race”

Which, after she reported it, essentially cost her the seat on the Board.

In some respects, this is just normal OGB sausage making. But given that WT is often held as a white knight in the sport versus, say, IM…well…things get a bit murkier.

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Ya, I saw the headlines and wanted to feel self righteously indignant at the crony statists in their cushy roles, but this isnt the sausage making corruption anyone expects to see.

I find it hard to be upset at people for talking about who they’ll support and not support and suggestions, encouragement etc to take on different roles.

Step down and you’ll get a free vacation and a new car and we’ll vote to keep you on the board? That is corruption.

This? Meh. And I’m the guy who wants to throw the book at all the federations.

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It is hilarious that Michelle Cooper “told the teacher” about the offer she got. Did she become head of Triathlon Australia with no behind the scenes bargaining at all?

Maybe the offer was just an insulting lowball for someone who had made Triathlon Australia such a well-organized success… oh wait

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Your response is naive. Do you have any legal experience?

This is the tip of the iceberg and goes much deeper than an innocent expression of opinion to influence a presidential vote.

They need a full audit for the last 10 years, all communications, all financial transactions, all drug testing data, all paperwork for awarding events/World Championships and most of all agents/consultants employed and what they were used for.

If they were covered by Freedom of Information Requests my first question would be how many non disclosure agreements have you signed and what is their nature!!!

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who would say this ?

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A lot of people who have knowledge of them would say the exact opposite. They are far from White Knight.

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Hah. Yes, but it’s irrelevant. My presumption is there is corruption. I was expecting to see more. Not at best case procedural violation relating to internal organizational support decisions made outside of meetings.

If all I’m reading here is accurate, what was said off the record could just have easily been said on the record and its a nothing burger. You can say there are more problems and no doubt there are.

But they could just have said publicly, “we support X for president, but still want you in the board if you’d be willing to step down.”

If there’s evidence of money being traded, let’s see it.

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The point is that the World Tri bylaws don’t require money to be traded hands. The simple “drop out or else you lose your exec board spot” is enough to be a violation.

It at least starts the snowball of: are the elections actually fair / free?

But, as you rightly mention – this is some of the traditional cloak and dagger governing body BS.

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ok but now what is actually going to happen will there be a deeper investigation into the actual president election. ie if this guy was banned for 1 year initially by world triathlon, how can the election stand if world triathlon says there was corruption …

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There is a lot more damaging information on “The Inquisitor” website which details (much of it behind a paywall) all the corruption etc that has gone on.
Basically with this election there was a list which was widely distributed that was essentially a how to vote paper, listing who to vote for and in what order.

There is far far more to this than the simple downgrading of this by ICAS, Arimany is the Vice President of ICAS…

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I can’t comprehend the response by World Tri saying it is untrue?

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That letter is…a problem.

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In the US, the president and vice president of the political parties run on a “slate.” The slate often endorses other candidates in other down ballot races. In order to be accepted onto the slate, a candidate typically is expected to support the others on the slate. Do we think of this as a quid pro quo? Do we consider it illegal? This is what is considered politics as usual from the birth of the nation. Many types of organizations operate this way without question. From what we read here, the defendent offered a position,on the slate to the complainant in return for her support of the slate. You & your friend vote for me. I and my friends will vote for you. I don’t think writing it on paper or in a text changes anything. I personally know and like all the named parties in this story. They are good leaders committed to triathlon with years of service to the sport. In IOC federations, the world is broken into regional confederations. The larger ones naturally will band together to represent their interests and boost their own candidates. Europe has many members. PATCO and Africa do as well. In any combination, these are powerful voting blocks. WT has had officers and Eboard members from Oceania but there’s no doubt a high hurdle to reach the highest office. In the end, each country casts an individual ballot. World Triathlon is proud to have more than 170 member countries. Each has its own laws, governments, and rules of civil society. It is a tremendous challenge to bring us all together under one sport banner with common rules. (Consider how long its took us to unite in support of a common rulebook.) That our systems of governnent are different and similar laws often are nterpreted somewhat differently should suprirse no one. We all work together to advance the sport fairly. to me, words like bribery and corruption are overkill in this situation. I think the CAS decision reflects that. I hope the good people involved in this dispute will soon be able to shake hands and return to working together for the good of triathlon.

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Welcome back :slight_smile:

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Although I agree with you in principle, this also appears to distort some of the facts at hand.

This is less a case of that so-called slate exchange. It’s intentionally removing an opponent from the proceeding. It’s telling, IMO, that CAS found this to be problematic.

It’s also strange to me that World Triathlon is now trying to call this all “false” when, well, this is the CAS report on it.

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I want to let you have the last word here but can’t resist adding my conclusion:, “that’s why poitics is caused sausage making.”

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Thanks for posting Melissa.

I totally agree that this is what politics looks like and the penalty is weird. But is this modus operandi A-OK?

In normal politics, the players can at least pretend they’re united behind ideas that people vote for. The slate is right wing, left wing, etc. “I’m endorsing X because she’s going to get rid of violence in the Y district of our town, and she’s endorsing me because I’ll keep the regulatory actions light touch”.

Meanwhile what’s the commonality of ideas in the politics of sports governing bodies, other than the idea that “our careers could progress together”?

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