(ATR) The International Swimming League (ISL) welcomes FINA’s decision to allow elite athletes the right to compete in non-FINA events but says the swimming federation still has work to do.
"This is a step in the right direction to free swimmers to compete more and earn more," Andrea di Nino, Managing Director of the ISL, said in a statement. "FINA’s capitulation comes in reaction to ISL’s and elite swimmers antitrust lawsuits that exposed FINA’s illegal threatened ban of swimmers who participate in ISL’s events."
The lawsuits, filed five weeks ago in California, were a response to ISL being forced in November to cancel the Energy for Swim 2018 competition scheduled for December in Turin after FINA threatened to ban athletes for up to two years for competing in what it had ruled was an unapproved meet.
Following a meeting of FINA leadership and selected national federations in Lausanne on Tuesday, FINA says that swimmers are now free to participate in competitions or events staged by independent organizers.
FINA President Julio Maglione, in a statement after the meeting, said "While FINA is bound to respect its rules, there is some scope for interpretation and application of those rules and it was a pleasure to be able to provide clarifications today."
What Maglione describes as "clarifications" the ISL is calling an "implicit admission of guilt".
"We look forward to FINA memorializing its newfound deference to the laws of the United States and of the European Union—and to the rights of the world’s swimmers and ISL—into an enforceable agreement,"said Konstantin Grigorishin, Head of Advisory Board and Financier of the ISL.
"We are reaching out to FINA now to enter into such a binding agreement. If FINA truly means what it said, then FINA will readily cooperate."
The ISL is also calling on FINA to atone for "the real financial harm" it caused to swimmers and the ISL by forcing the cancellation of the Turin event and by the launch of the FINA Champions Swim Series competition, which the ISL says is a copy of its model and is designed "to quash competition that benefits swimmers and fans alike".
The two competing series will not overlap on the 2019 calendar. The FINA competition will run between March and May while the ISL swimming league season is expected to begin after the Pan American Games end in August and will wrap up in December with the semifinals and final in Las Vegas.
Written by Gerard Farek
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