The IAAF plans to cut more than $20 million in expenses the next three years, including $4 million in 2010, to weather the global financial crisis, a senior athletics source said on Friday.
Cuts would come from all areas of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) with the organisation also hoping to benefit from an improved exchange rate between the dollar and the euro.
The IAAF’s executive board heard the proposals at a meeting in Monaco on Friday. The recommendations must be approved by the IAAF Council at its next session in Kiev in August.
The proposals and more than $35 million in Olympic revenue sharing from the 2012 Games would help the organisation achieve balanced income/expenditure for 2010-12 while maintaining a capital reserve of at last one year’s operating budget, the source said.
Income for the period will be approximately $204 million with expenditures of about $203 million.
The organisation had expenses of $65 million in 2009 and had proposed spending $56 million this year before the cuts, the senior official said.
Britain’s Daily Mail newspaper reported in March the IAAF faced bankruptcy unless it cut costs and several European officials also have expressed concerns about the governing body.
IAAF officials denied the report.
Television and marketing revenues for the organisation have been hard hit, the Daily Mail said. Key networks such as the BBC in Britain and ZDF in Germany did not televise the world indoor championships in March, saying the IAAF was asking too much, the newspaper said.
But the IAAF said it expected to add new television revenue and to sign a significant title sponsor for the Diamond League circuit.
“The (global) crisis is making everything difficult and affects everyone,” IAAF president Lamine Diack told a news conference in Doha earlier this month. “The dollar euro exchange has not been kind for operational costs and we have not been earning as much money on our reserves because the interest rates are so low.”
He said the organisation had $79 million in reserves at the time, which represented close to two years’ operating expenses.
(Reporting by Gene Cherry in Raleigh, North Carolina; editing by Pritha Sarkar; To query or comment on this story email sportsfeedback@thomsonreuters.com)
