Two years ago, Otto Drakenberg caused a stir when he stood up for human rights during the FIE congress. Now he has decided to challenge for the chairmanship of the association.
Drakenberg is one of two candidates. The other is Alisher Usmanov, FIE’s suspended chairman, who this week surprisingly announced his intention to return.
Alisher Usmanov has close ties to Vladimir Putin. Photo: Alexei Nikolsky/AP
Usmanov, who was born in Uzbekistan and lived in Russia, became chairman in 2008 and has been re-elected three times. The billionaire is considered to have strong ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin and was one of the oligarchs sanctioned by the EU after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. He then chose to suspend himself from FIE. The association has since been led by an interim chairman, the Greek Emmanuel Katsiadakis.
Ana Valero-Collantes, former board member of the Swedish Fencing Association, is one of the people responsible for the campaign to get Otto Drakenberg elected.
– From a European point of view, we have worked to get a good candidate and we are very happy that Otto is running, she says.
The Swedish chairman has become known for his criticism of FIE and has been praised for his defense of fair play, but he is said to be a controversial candidate in some circles. When Drakenberg stood up for human rights at the 2023 Congress, many countries did their best to silence him from the podium. The video, in which delegates are heard booing and banging their hands on the table, went viral.
Even at the 2021 congress, it became conflicted, when Usmanov urged the delegates not to vote for a Swedish proposal on new qualification rules for the Olympics.
Valero-Collantes explains that they decided to nominate Drakenberg even before they knew that Usmanov was a candidate. She says that it was only this week that the candidacy became official through FIE’s website and that, although there had been rumours, it came as a surprise.
– He is still suspended by the EU, so we wonder if he is really eligible, says Valero-Collantes.
71-year-old Usmanov is said to have pumped SEK 70 million annually into the association during his years as a fencing base, which made him popular. In a statement, he claims that he had the support of 103 of FIE’s 156 member countries and thus a clear majority.
“A sign of confidence and recognition of what international fencing has achieved in the last 15 years,” Usmanov said in the statement.
The FIE congress takes place in the oligarch’s home country of Uzbekistan at the end of November.
Usmanov recently sued the German television channel ARD, which claimed that the FIE bribed judges before the Paris Olympics. A court in Hamburg ruled in his favor at the beginning of October and banned ARD from publishing the accusations while fining the television channel.
DN is looking for Otto Drakenberg.
