FIS President Johan Eliasch is pulling out all the stops in the fight for his re-election. The British-Swedish entrepreneur is running for a third term as Georgia’s candidate.
Sweden and Great Britain had previously declared that they did not want to nominate the controversial boss of the International Ski and Snowboard Federation. The statutes of the FIS stipulate that election candidates must have “a valid passport of the nationality of their nominating member association.”
The previous Eliasch election was already controversial
The Georgian association initially did not provide any information about the background. Recently there had been speculation that Eliasch wanted to get the Armenian passport. The FIS wants to send its member associations a list of eligible candidates on May 20th after review by an international committee. The actual election will take place on June 11th in Serbia’s capital Belgrade.
In addition to Eliasch, Alexander Ospelt (Liechtenstein), Anna Harboe Falkenberg (Denmark), Dexter Paine (USA) and Victoria Gosling (Great Britain) are also aiming for the office. Eliasch succeeded long-time President Gian-Franco Kasper in 2021. His re-election in 2022 was already controversial. The only option in the election was to vote for Eliasch or to abstain – a “no” vote was not possible. The German Ski Association (DSV) called this a farce.