Hickey slams ‘cheque book politics’

THE leading Olympic official in the country has launched a stinging attack on the Irish Sports Council’s High Performance Unit which, he claims, has failed in its brief to produce results at the Games despite record levels of funding.

Pat Hickey, the president of the Olympic Council of Ireland, claimed it was “embarrassing” to witness what he described as the limited amount of progress made by the ISC in developing systems and structures to support national federations over 14 years.

“Performance planning has been fiscal-led rather than performance-driven and the overall Beijing performance, despite the boxing medals, was just not good enough given the €34m public investment in the ISC’s High Performance programme in the Beijing Olympiad period.”