Pat Hickey (sports administrator)

Patrick Joseph "Pat" Hickey (born 17 June 1945) is an Irish sports administrator. He was president of the Olympic Council of Ireland from 1988 until 2016, and also served on Olympic and judo bodies at European and global level.

Hickey worked as an estate agent, qualifying at the Institute of Property Valuers. In 2015, his firm, Hickey Auctioneers, was run by his daughter and eldest son.

A 2nd dan black belt in judo, he represented Ireland internationally, and competed into his forties. He maintains his fitness, and in 2015 he was jogging several times weekly in Phoenix Park.

Hickey was president of the Irish Judo Association from 1979 until becoming Honorary Life President in 1989. He was elected to the executive committee of the Olympic Council of Ireland (OCI) in 1981 and was in successive Irish Olympic delegations from Los Angeles 1984. He became president of the OCI in 1989 on the recommendation of Lord Killanin, former president of the OCI and the International Olympic Committee (IOC). After the 1999 establishment of the Irish Sports Council (ISC), Hickey clashed with both the ISC and successive sports ministers over responsibility for high performance sport, until the Institute of Sport was established within the ISC. Hickey was re-elected president of the OCI for successive four-year terms, usually unopposed, and defeating Richard Burrows of the Irish Sailing Association 27–10 in 2001. Hickey alleged Burrows' candidacy was an ISC attempt to oust him.

When the OCI hosted the 1991 assembly of the European Olympic Committees (EOC) Hickey took the opportunity to forge relations with the newly admitted National Olympic Committees of the post-Soviet states. Hickey became a member of the IOC in 1995. He became president of the EOC in 2006, commissioned a feasibility study for the European Games, and was instrumental in establishing the Games.Nick Cohen, a reporter with The Guardian, criticised Hickey for flattering undemocratic leaders of potential hosts of the inaugural 2015 Games: Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus and Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan.

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