The FEI, the global governing body of equestrian sports, has backed a proposal to pay its president for the first time.
The FEI voted in favour of the proposal during its Extraordinary General Assembly at the FEI Sports Forum in Lausanne, Switzerland.
The unanimous vote of its member associations in favour of paying incumbent president Ingmar de Vos (pictured) still needs to be ratified by the FEI Bureau, which will discuss the issue at its meeting in June.
Proposed changes to the Jumping qualification and competition formats for the Olympic and FEI World Equestrian Games were also discussed, as well as the FEI’s Event Classification and CSI Invitation Systems.
John Madden, chair of the FEI Jumping Committee, made a detailed presentation inviting participants to embrace change.
“We must always strive to strengthen our position on the Olympic programme,” he said. “We are here today to do just that. Much thought and consideration has already gone into these proposals. Not everyone is going to like what we propose here, but we have no choice but to change. But I want to emphasise that the only agreement that’s been reached is that we need to strengthen our position in the Olympic programme, everything else is up for discussion and that’s the purpose of today’s session and the ongoing debate.”
