ASOIF President Ricci Bitti: “Federations Need To Re-Evaluate Their Role”

International federations need to be “faster, more pro-active and more professional,” according to Francesco Ricci Bitti, President of the Association of Summer Olympic International Federations. He added that they need to demonstrate “more integrity” too.

The comments were made during this exclusive interview with iSportconnect during SportAccord in Gold Coast, Australia, last week.

Ricci Bitti heads the grouping of 28 international federations of sports taking part in the Summer Olympics. ASOIF is the body which, among other functions, decides how these federations split the revenues from the Games (the IFs received more than $500 million from Rio 2016).

An Italian with a business background in telecoms, he was President of the International Tennis Federation from 1999-2015. He has served on the boards of Phillips, GTE, Olivetti, Alcatel and Telecom Italia.

This frank, big-picture interview is well worth watching in full.