GENEVA (AP) — In a defeat for athletes who challenge the officials who run their sport, a California court has ruled in favor of swimming’s governing body in antitrust cases filed in 2018..
World Aquatics said Monday it had won a judge’s rulings in the US District Court in San Francisco.
The cases were brought by Katinka Hosszú, Tom Shields and Michael Andrew, all Olympic or world championship gold medalists, and a separate but linked challenge by the independent International Swimming League. He promised bigger prize money for competing in a more dynamic and stream-friendly format.
The Ukraine-backed ISL began competing in 2019 after a failed launch the previous year in Italy amid threats from the world swimming body to ban cooperating member federations. The governing body was then known under the previous leadership by its French acronym FINA.
The judge’s 30-page ruling dated last Friday sided with the governing body in cases that had been shaping up to be potential watershed events for athlete activism.
“We are pleased that a period of uncertainty is ending,” World Aquatics President Husain al-Musallam said in a statement. “This is an important decision and also a good decision, not only for World Aquatics, but for the Olympic movement and beyond.”
The judge, Jacqueline Scott Corley, said the athletes had failed to show that a US court should have jurisdiction for Swiss-based FINA to pressure the Italian swimming federation to cancel a scheduled meet in Turin.
“The Tribunal acknowledges that the file is replete with evidence of FINA’s concern for ISL’s competition. So what?” Corley also wrote. “Antitrust laws do not require one competitor to help another compete with it; instead, they prohibit only unreasonable restrictions of trade.”
ISL ran for three seasons from 2019-21 backed by Ukrainian businessman Konstantin Grigorishin. The league stopped in 2022.
The judge’s ruling stated: “It is indisputable that top-level swimmers are not contractually bound to swim only in FINA-approved competitions.”
“This was, and always has been, an avoidable controversy,” said Brent Nowicki, CEO of World Aquatics since 2021.
A similar case of athletes challenging their Lausanne-based governing body to grant them more freedom to compete in lucrative events is ongoing in the European courts in Luxembourg.
In 2017, two speed skaters from the Netherlands won a European Commission ruling in Brussels against the International Skating Union for breaches of competition law. They had been threatened with bans for wanting to compete in an event hosted by South Korea in Dubai.
The Court of Justice of the European Union sent that case last month to the lower General Court for review.
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