Article courtesy of FOX Sports.
D-Day has arrived for Swimming Australia with the organisation facing expulsion from world swimming.
With the governing body heading into a special general meeting on Friday, the sport has been rocked again by extraordinary reported claims surrounding Australia’s richest woman Gina Rinehart, who has an estimated net worth of $37.4 billion.
News Corp first reported Rinehart’s decision to step away from funding the governing body — to instead focus on payments given directly to individual athletes — has created a gaping hole the sport has not been able to recover from.
It was revealed in August the mining mogul has pumped a staggering $60 million of her estimated $37.1b fortune into various Aussie Olympic teams, including swimming, volleyball and rowing. It is no secret the Australian swimming team has always been her darling.
She was poolside at the 2023 World Aquatics Championships in Japan in July as the Aussie team blew the Americans out of the water with 13 gold medals
Aussie star Shayna Jack made a special thankyou to Rinehart on the pool deck after the Aussie 4x100m mixed freestyle relay team won gold.
“We couldn’t be prouder and also just to have Gina in the crowd supporting us, that’s amazing,” she said on Channel 9.
Rinehart and her Hancock Prospecting mining company is reported to have ceased all payments for the Diamonds after she sensationally walked out on Australian Netball following the sport’s $15 million sponsorship storm.
However, new details of her expanding sponsorship program have now been revealed by Code Sport with 92 elite swimmers now receiving funding through the Hancock Prospecting Swimmer Support Scheme
Gina Rinehart with Australian swimmers and Swimming Australia head John Bertrand
The dark side to Rinehart’s switch to focus on financially supporting individual athletes is that Swimming Australia has been left with a gaping hole of a $7 million sponsorship short fall since Rinehart’s decision to quit on the governing body two years ago.
The 69-year-old’s pull-out means Swimming Australia’s sponsorship revenue has fallen from $10m per-year to $3 million per-year.
It is just one of several shocking revelations that have rocked Swimming Australia as it heads into Friday’s meeting.
According to the report, Rinehart took issue with what she claims is a lack of transparency surrounding her financial contributions ending up in the hands of individual athletes.
