Someone please explain how this isn't conflict of interest????????
- Thread starter d1jinx
- Start date
I think you are missing the point. He is a merchant and is selling his skills. There is no rule saying you must be Brazilian to sell to Brazilians.
Sean
mastercole
Master Black Belt
Maybe what we have here is that the Olympic has been going the way of professional sports, where athletes and coaches are more and more becoming free agents of sorts.
I don't think it hurts the competition side of the Olympics, I think it weakens the cultural side, which is what the modern Olympics was based on. So we have an evolving Olympic movement?
I do remember years ago when I realized that Bella Karoli (?) came over from Romania on contract with USA Gymnastics and began producing all these Olympic champions that somehow felt odd to me.
I don't think it hurts the competition side of the Olympics, I think it weakens the cultural side, which is what the modern Olympics was based on. So we have an evolving Olympic movement?
I do remember years ago when I realized that Bella Karoli (?) came over from Romania on contract with USA Gymnastics and began producing all these Olympic champions that somehow felt odd to me.
Capitalism feels odd?
Does it bother anyone that you are studying a Korean Art? Not very American, is it? 
Sean
Sean
Bella defected to the United States in 1981, became involved in a private gymnastics gym and was the personal coach for two gymnasts at the 1984 Olympic Games. Upon a special Congressional waiver of the citizenship requirements (making an early grant of citizenship) USA Gymnastics entered into a contract with Bella to be National Olympic Team Coach for the 1988 Games in Seoul.
-- Bagehot
USTU athletes as well as athletes from other countries, including UK (Aaron Cook) go to Korea to train in preparation for the Olympic Games and other WTF International Events. And we used also have exchanges where OTC and other coaches helped team members from other countries. Other coaches in the US have been retained to train athletes from other countries. This is not something that is new. Everyone is out there helping everyone else prepare for international competition.
mastercole
Master Black Belt
No, not at all. The odd feeling was from a culture environment that I grew up in, a very European section of Cleveland, but it's just a feeling , not rule of mine. The area Polish Bocce coach might have been great, he would likely never coach the Italian Bocce ball team from our neighborhood in the big annual game against Youngstown, Ohio's Brier Hill Bocce ball team.
mastercole
Master Black Belt
Does it bother anyone that you are studying a Korean Art? Not very American, is it?
Sean
No one here is saying that.
mastercole
Master Black Belt
Which I think was a great thing and I am glad that he could do that and that he received special consideration to do so. This is the USA, everyone should have a chance.
mastercole
Master Black Belt
I think this is another area where the USAT failed, and continues to fail. Whoever is in power in the USAT needs to have solid and varied IN DEPTH international relations, and they need to understand how to continue to build those relationships while understanding the benefits US athletes derive from doing so.
OP
OP
d1jinx
Master Black Belt
completely acceptable in my oppinion. He became a citizen and made his home America. this was now his country and not on loan for hire..
Even if everything you've said is true, do you really think this is the proper way to go about it? I am not opposed to terminating his contract if he materially breached his contract of employment. But if anything is going to happen, it is because due diligence was done and it is the proper thing to do, not because a mob of people are angry at him and want his head on a platter.
ralphmcpherson
Senior Master
It does seem odd. More and more coaches in sports are coaching national teams from countries other than their own. Rugby union, soccer and cricket have adopted this idea. Where this is a little different is that, the way I understand it, he still coaches American athletes at the same time. If thats the case, and there is no more to it, then certainly it has to be a conflict of interest.
andyjeffries
Senior Master
I wasn't that interested in this thread until the last dozen or so posts where it suddenly seemed to become about people "whoring" themselves out to coach other countries and coaches getting citizenship before producing champions. You're absolutely right that this is normal in most other sports. Up until a week or so ago, the England Football Team was coached by an Italian, Fabio Capello. We were grateful to have him (some have disagreed with his reasons for leaving but that's OT here).
Closer to home, GB Taekwondo have had Professor Moon Won-Jae coaching them up until he recently left to head up KNSU's Taekwondo programme. We've had no issue with that.
There are also people on here who would advocate Josef Salim coaching with USA. I don't know if he has US citizenship now, but he certainly wasn't born in America (and he's now helping GB Taekwondo, so no thanks, you can't have him ;-) ).
I don't understand why people would have an issue with countries getting the best coach they can to coach their national team, regardless of where they're from. They aren't entering the competition themselves, so there are no restrictions on nationality.
Now, I agree with Ralph's comment that if he's coaching two national sides at the same time then I disagree with that, but there have been a lot of comments in this thread that are more about foreign coaches for national teams than just the simple issue of "don't coach two countries simultaneously".
What if they are in completely different gender or weight divisions? I help train Aaron Cook from UK for olympic welter, and at the same time coach the olympic male heavyweight from mali. Do you disagree with that?
andyjeffries
Senior Master
Sorry for the delay in replying, I hadn't noticed this comment until a friend pointed it out.
I would not disagree with it. To re-quote my statement:
andyjeffries said:
If you were coaching the UK Olympic Team and then players from Mali for the Olympics, I would disagree. If you are being paid to be the national coach, then you shouldn't be acting against your contract (and I would have thought that most contracts for professional coaches would include restrictive covenants against coaching other international players). Even if there was no term in the contract, I would have a moral/ethical issue with it as you are being paid to coach a national side to beat other players (and then coaching the other players).
I have no issue with an individual instructor (you or anyone else) doing it, only national coaches.
I have no issue with an individual instructor coaching every male Olympic Welterweight in the world (to rule out gender/weight divisions), only people paid/hired/chosen to be the national coach for a team.
Hopefully that makes more sense.
Most know who you are referring to...he is a great coach...but is on the outside looking in with regard to the USAT..he is like so many coaches and athletes from the USA have had to go outside our country and NGB to get a fair shake. I hope that the new USAT is able to remedy this sad state of affairs.
The new USAT is acting just like the old USAT nothing has changed so far.....
