A new ISAF?

We speak to ISAF Secretary General, Jerome Pels

In January this year the familiar figure of Jerome Pels was appointed as the ISAF’s new Secretary General, a position that is well known but often misunderstood. Being one of the most influential positions in our sport and with the all-important ISAF Annual Meeting kicking off imminently we felt it was time to find out more about the man.

Pels himself has been involved in both sailing and the administration of our sport for many years. His father, Anders Pels was editor of a sailing magazine in the Netherlands. His father also imported four of the first six Lasers into the Netherlands and the Pels family essentially set up the Dutch Laser Class Association. Some years later, his father once again introduced a new class into the country in the form of the Optimist. One of the first of these went to Jerome Pels – the Lasers, he muses, had gone to his older brother, his sister, father and uncle. With this newest import, so the Pels were involved in the set-up of yet another Dutch class association. Being too small for a Laser, Pels went on to sail a Radial – or a Laser M, as it was then, with a slightly different rig.

Professionally Pels was all set for a career in law after completing a degree in his chosen subject. However, between finishing his degree and finding an apprenticeship in a law firm, he got somewhat side tracked. “At that time I was doing a lot of youth coaching for the Dutch Sailing Federation,” he explains. “This was just after the 1988 Games in Seoul where the Dutch had some problems with the results. They asked me to go to the Flying Dutchman Worlds in Italy with some of the new FD sailors and be their coach. I did that for three months and that turned into a year and then they asked me to continue until the 1992 Olympics as Team Leader.”

In 1992, after four years at the sharp end of Olympic sailing Pels felt it was time to knuckle down and make a return to law and a ‘proper career’. This choice was made for a variety of reasons, but one of the big factors was the money he was earning as a coach compared to how much his law-school friends were making. “The Dutch Federation asked how much money I was talking about. I mentioned a figure I thought they would not accept, but they did and then I had another contract until 1996 and we were successful.” After the 1996 Olympic Games, though, Pels was once again keen to return to law. However, he quickly found going back into the business after so much time out was harder than he thought.

During the Olympic Games in Atlanta, Pels had got to know the, then Secretary General of ISAF, Arve Sundheim. There Sundheim had mentioned the potential prospect of a position becoming available at ISAF since the office was being moved from London to Southampton. And so it was that Pels started at ISAF in April 1997 in the events and competitions department before going on to head the group, delivering the 2000, 2004 and 2008 Olympic Games for ISAF. With Sundheim officially announcing his resignation as Secretary General this time last year, shortly after Pels was named as his successor. “Because I was working in ISAF already we had a very long changeover but I only took over the role in January this year,” he explains.

As mentioned, the ISAF offices were originally based in London, however a variety of circumstances forced a move to Southampton. “When we moved there was quite a bit of interest or prestige in having a world governing body of a sport in a city” he comments. “There was a bit of a race between several cities on the south coast with offers from Portsmouth, Brighton and Southampton.” The ISAF offices in Southampton are very convenient for the ISAF as many who work there are sailors, and this provided them with easier access to the water. Additionally Southampton has an international airport with obvious advantages in accessibility. Finally, there was a significant financial benefit in making the move to the south. “Because there was a battle to have our organisation in their city, Southampton City Council negotiated a reduction on the rent and we also have charity status here within the city, so we do not pay any business rates.” The business rates ISAF was paying in London were more than the entire rent they currently pay in Southampton.

Although everyone in the sailing world knows the Southampton offices as ISAF, this is not actually the case. “We call this ISAF and it is ISAF but it is a separate limited company from the actual Sailing Federation. This is ISAF UK limited,” comments Pels as we speak to him in his Town Quay office. “Most sport federations, except for the ones that are doing very well in their commercial arm - such as athletics, football and swimming, rely quite heavily on the income that they share coming from the Olympic Games. One of the problems each Federation faces is that it is then taxable if it is in the UK. So by going to the Isle of Man you do not have the corporation tax, so that is where the Federation is actually registered.” Pels goes on to explain that as Secretary General, he actually has two jobs. The first is as Secretary General of ISAF, the Isle of Man-based company, and the second as Managing Director of ISAF UK LTD, based in Southampton. Thus ISAF itself in fact only has one employee - Pels - it is its daughter company ISAF UK that employs the ISAF secretariat.

But there are other reasons than just tax to separate the two organisations. In terms of its funding, the ISAF gets some income from class associations and the like, but their main source of money is from the Olympic Games every four years. This is a reasonable amount of money, however, it does not begin to compare to the turnover of larger Federations. “What have to do, is try and ring fence some income incase a problem comes up with liability or something,” Pels explains. In this way the Federation is able to protect itself if it were sued by a particularly wealthy party. Pels notes the Americas Cup as an example as there is no way the ISAF could ever afford to get into a legal argument with the likes of an Ellison or Bertarelli, so a portion of their income must be separated to protect them to a degree.



One might imagine that being the sole employee of ISAF and the Secretary General might allow Pels significant power to wield in the decision making process. In reality, this is a long way from the truth and the position actually holds almost no voting power whatsoever. “I make no decisions myself, I am not a member of any committee, I have no vote - I am an employee,” he explains. “However, because I am involved in all the issues I have a full background so from a briefing point of view for the politicians it is my task to give them all the information. Our President [Goran Petersson, above] demands a recommendation from all the staff about where we might go, especially on technical decisions. Changing the doping rules, for example, is done by a team here. They do all the work and decide what needs to be changed and then this is sent to the Constitution Committee who approve it and the Council will decide officially, but most of the work is done by the employees. People ask for my opinion and I will give them the background and even my personal opinion and that is it - then they can talk about it. None of the staff are part of the argument.”

Not being ‘part of the argument’ does not mean Pels is simply an administrator. He has a key role in understanding and directing where the ISAF is heading in the future. For example a slight change in approach since taking over from Arve Sundheim has been his desire for the ISAF to embrace the internet more and for the Federation to have a more open conversational role with the general public and press. However, it is in the technical areas of the Federation where he is pushing the greatest change. One particular area is the official ISAF classes. “My philosophy- and we are going to implement this because it will strengthen the whole technical department – is we are now saying to designers ‘if you want to put a product together for racing, then get involved with us as we have the expertise on how to set up the class rules and organisation.' Of course there will be a fee for that as it is a service,” he explains. “That way we have a relationship before the start of a class, though of course we will still have the rules about global spread and such.”



Essentially, the issue as Pels sees it is that previously boats were designed for sailing and a number of owners would race the boat. At a certain point the international spread of owners would become wide enough for the class to become an ISAF class. Now, however, more designers are bringing out boats specifically for racing. Because of this the ISAF classes list does not include the latest breed or racing boats, which makes the Federation less representative of the modern day sailing community. Pels sees the Russell Coutts 44 (above) as a perfect example of this and believes classes like this must be helped to reach ISAF status sooner rather than later.

It would seem with a new Secretary General in the form of Pels, we might be see some modernising of the Federation. While the man himself admits his power to make changes on the key voting level is severely limited, there is no question that he is one of the key influencing figures. We will have to wait and see if and how this brings change to ISAF or whether it remains the same old federation as before.