{"id":992716,"date":"2026-05-29T18:08:28","date_gmt":"2026-05-29T18:08:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/992716\/"},"modified":"2026-05-29T18:08:28","modified_gmt":"2026-05-29T18:08:28","slug":"matt-richards-fires-back-at-ioc-president-comments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/992716\/","title":{"rendered":"Matt Richards Fires Back at IOC President Comments"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Britain\u2019s Matt Richards Fires Back at IOC President Comments About Payment<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Days after <strong>Kirsty Coventry<\/strong>, the President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), commented that she doesn\u2019t \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/ioc-president-kirsty-coventry-i-dont-believe-in-paying-athletes\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">believe in paying athletes<\/a>,\u201d Olympians continue to fire back against the sentiment. In a post on his LinkedIn page, Great Britain\u2019s <strong>Matt Richards<\/strong> posted a lengthy response to Coventry\u2019s words.<\/p>\n<p>Richards is a multi-time Olympian who twice has helped Britain win gold in the 800 freestyle relay, and also secured a silver medal in the 200 freestyle at the 2024 Olympics in Paris. Richards, through empassioned and measured words, spoke out against the IOC using his image and success to bank billions of dollars, while the athletes did not receive proper payment for their talents and performances.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe IOC president just said \u2018I don\u2019t believe in paying athletes,&#8217;\u201d Richards wrote.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLet me tell you what that actually means for those athletes\u2026<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI won two Olympic gold medals by 21 years old. By most measures, that made me one of the most commercially valuable athletes in British sport. And for the two weeks those Games were on, the IOC used my image, my story, and my performances to sell a product that generates billions of dollars in broadcast rights and sponsorship revenue \u2013 as they should.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut for that I got a nice Olympic village and a medal ceremony\u2026<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m not saying this to complain \u2013 I absolutely love competing at the Olympics and I\u2019ll do it again. But the idea that athletes should be grateful for \u201cbeautiful venues and a beautiful experience\u201d while the organisation around them operates as a commercial empire, generating billions every year, is one of the most backwards things in sport.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd it\u2019s not just the Olympics. This is the water most athletes are swimming in every day of their careers (pardon the pun).<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ve spoken to hundreds of athletes at every level. The story is almost always the same. Underpaid, undervalued, and with no idea how to change it.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is exactly the mission I set out to tackle when founding <a class=\"link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/company\/sponza-linkedin?trk=public_post-text\" target=\"_self\" data-tracking-control-name=\"public_post-text\" data-tracking-will-navigate=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Sponza<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAll of this said, I don\u2019t think every athlete should get a cheque from the IOC. But every athlete with a platform \u2013 no matter how niche \u2013 deserves transparency, access, and a fair shot at building an income from the thing they\u2019ve dedicated their life to \u2013 with the Olympics being the pinnacle of that for most.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBeing an Olympic athlete, of course I am passionately biased on this \u2013 but really interested to hear everyone\u2019s take here. Do you think the IOC should be doing better? Personally, I do.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Britain\u2019s Matt Richards Fires Back at IOC President Comments About Payment Days after Kirsty Coventry, the President of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":992717,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5018,3,4],"tags":[748,393,4884,119229,154560,17940,1144,712,16,15,1764],"class_list":["post-992716","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-britain","category-uk","category-united-kingdom","tag-britain","tag-england","tag-great-britain","tag-ioc","tag-kirsty-coventry","tag-matt-richards","tag-northern-ireland","tag-scotland","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-wales"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116659205442015922","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/992716","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=992716"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/992716\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/992717"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=992716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=992716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=992716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}