The european hegemony on International Olympic Committee

Abstract

Although the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has existed for more than a century, it has only had nine presidents in its history. The founder of the IOC Baron Pierre de Coubertin had proposed the internationalization of the entity. This has always been the discourse of the Committee, but little has been done to change the composition of its leadership. Historically there has been a predominance of European leaders and members. The proposal of this article is to make a comparative analysis of the offi cial biographies of IOC presidents available on IOC website with the offi cial documents of the IOC (the Olympic Bulletin and the offi cial website), as well as newspapers of that time (Folha da Manhã, Folha de S. Paulo and O Estado de S. Paulo). In summary we have identifi ed other signifi cant elements of each president’s management criticism in newspapers different from the perfect image built by offi cial discourse.