POC forms committee to settle NSA leadership disputes

The Philippine Olympic Committee (POC) will create an arbitration committee composed of external mediators to investigate squabbling national sports associations (NSAs) and settle all intra-corporate disputes.

Communications director Ed Picson said on Tuesday the POC reached the decision during a recent expanded board meeting. A test case will be the leadership conflict in the Philippine Tennis Association (Philta).

Philta president Antonio Cablitas and the group of tennis patron Jean Henri Lhuillier have been contesting the top post for over a year now.

The father-son international lawyer tandem of Erik and Mike Ingles are among those being eyed to lead the arbitration committee since no member of the POC or NSAs will be tapped for the job.

Erik Ingles is a member of the International Olympic Committee-Court of Arbitration for Sport (IOC-CAS).

Weightlifting, karate and volleyball have problems of their own after groups outside of the POC-NSA circle question the legitimacy of their leadership, but those cases don’t fall under the jurisdiction of the committee.