WHEN attempts are made to change rules so that an official's term of office can be extended, it gives rise to immediate disquiet. The ageing Spanish president of the International Olympic Committee, Juan Antonio Samaranch, does not lack supporters and they tried unsuccessfully at an IOC meeting in Budapest to have the age limit for mandatory retirement raised from the present 75. They did so clearly with the consent of Samaranch who wishes to remain in this crucial position of sporting power until the Sydney Olympics at the turn of the century. Even if Samaranch is considered the best president in the history of the IOC - there haven't been many thanks to the fiefdom of autocratic American Avery Brundage - attempts to prolong his democratic stay in power are harmful to the image of the IOC.
Are we to believe that there is no successor in the sporting world capable of taking on the position to be vacated by Samaranch in 1997? If that is the case, then it says very little for the IOC.
Samaranch may be in his 70s, but he clearly feels he can continue to discharge his duties with diligence and authority. The alternative, of course, is obscure retirement far removed from the seat of sporting power that attracts so much media attention.
Like politicians, the dispossessed Margaret Thatcher firmly included, life in the outside world is simply not appealing. Having drunk from the fountain of power, sporting or otherwise, the brew of isolation is decidedly sour.
But Samaranch must go because the rules are categorical and should not be changed. Hopefully, both he and his supporters will see that it is the IOC and not its president, that matters most.
Any further attempts to change the rules to permit Samaranch to continue merely undermines the democratic process and suggests an unwelcome, unwarranted autocracy.
