Athletics in the UK: The Rise and Fall of the BAF

48 ENGLAND STILL NOT SATISFIED By January 1991, sufficient progress was being made to decide a date for the various special meetings needed to formally approve the establishment of BAF. The chosen date was Saturday 17 th March 1991 and the venue was Birmingham. In anticipation, the legal formalities were put in place ready for formal approval on 17 th March. The British Athletic Federation Limited was registered as a company at Companies house on 20 th February 1991. A new memorandum and articles of association for the AAA of England were agreed as were draft contracts transferring assets from the BAAB and AAA to the BAF. The formal resolutions to be passed at the respective meetings (including those to wind up the BAAB and the Women’s AAA) were drafted by Charles Woodhouse and all seemed set; except that the AAA was making difficulties over the agreement to be entered into by itself (the future AAA of England) and the BAF. It will be recalled that the AAA had successfully built up a number of lucrative events. These were included in the joint AAA-BAAB television and marketing contracts and included the AAA track and field championships which were world famous and had been organised annually since 1880. For some years these championships had been used as the official team selection trials for the major international event of the year, whether the Olympic Games, World or European Championships or the Commonwealth Games. As the BAAB, and in future the BAF, selected Great Britain teams and organised the trials whereas the AAA championships belonged to the AAA, there was a mixture of rights to this event that had to be unravelled. The AAA had insisted that, whereas they accepted that, in future, the BAF would handle the marketing and organisation of all the TV events, the rights of ownership over the AAA Championships would stay with the AAA of England and they would expect to have a say in these matters. This was a not unreasonable position but the relationship between the AAA of England and BAF needed to be documented in a formally binding contract so as to avoid the possibility of disputes in the future. Not for the first time, agreement proved problematic and, for the first time, Charles Woodhouse found his role in advising both parties to the contract extremely difficult.