Desde la FAY, queremos dejar clara nuestra postura sobre la votación llevada a cabo en Sarasota.
Buenos Aires, December 6, 2018
Sirs. Members of the Board,
The undersigned are deeply troubled by the recent note sent by the CEO of World Sailing. We kindly request you to inform us what is in the CEO’s note is the opinion of all of the members of the Board and as such, the intention is to make the Council irrelevant and eventually cease to exist, or, if that is not the intention, then we would request that the Board proceed according to our regulations and respect our structure and the accepted norms of behavior and procedure of any democratic institution.
According to the information received, the counselors Peter Hall, Zvi Zlvlat and Georgy Wossala would have voted against the approval of proposal 037/18 which the members of the Board had unanimously endorsed.
Nobody doubts that these three counselors say the truth when they affirm that they intended to vote to reject. Their positions were publicly known to everyone in attendance at the meeting, and it is not acceptable to hide the problem by insinuating a silly mistake for the most important vote of our meeting in Sarasota. The truth is that, computing the votes correctly, proposal 37/18 could never have been considered by the Assembly, and according to our regulations, it would have been rejected. Then the failure is not inconsequential, it results in a serious damage to the organization, including its credibility and reputation.
The solution proposed in the letter sent by Sr. Andy Hunt is absolutely inadequate, and generates a clear conflict of interest.
The CEO is ultimately the responsible person in charge of implementing a reliable voting system in our meetings. Therefore, in light of the situation we are facing, he cannot be a part of the problem´s resolution, he is unquestionably conflicted in trying to resolved the problem
affecting three long-standing Counselors.
The Board, which publicly supported proposal 37/18, should not take part in the analysis of the matter either, as there was some defect, irregularity or external sabotage in the voting, which in its absence would defeat the Board’s proposal, therefore the Board also has a manifest conflict of interest.
All of the Council´s members had and have an interest in the vote’s outcome, and as a result, in the investigation of the matter. Therefore, we propose that counselors Peter Hall, Zvi Zlvlat and Georgy Wossala should be required to ratify formally how they intended to vote. If when correcting the resulting computation, proposal 37/18 does not achieve 75% of the votes cast, then any executive action intending to implement proposal 37/18 be immediately suspended. Finally, we believe that a complete external investigation be undertaken by an absolutely independent institution to clarify the matter, and as a result determine the responsibilities that may correspond.
The incorporation of one or another class to an Olympic program must not threaten our institution´s credibility, especially when the existing economic interests behind this determination have become public.
