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The senior executive payroll at the Australian Olympic Committee (AOC) has more than doubled since the Sydney Olympics even though Australia's Games medal haul has halved.

A report in The New Daily has shown that since 2002, the combined salaries of the AOC’s most senior executives have more than doubled – from $1.09 million to $2.43 million last year – as their ranks have swelled.

Last year, $2.43 million was shared by eight senior executives, including AOC President Coates - who earned $689,634 - and Secretary General Fiona de Jong, who was paid $452,145.

At the same time Australia's medal haul has fallen from a record high of 58 at the 2000 Sydney Games to less than half that at Rio.

By Thursday evening (AEST), Australia had won just 25 medals in Rio, making it the least successful Games since Barcelona in 1992.

The New Daily suggests that "the results are unremarkable, even alarming, given state and federal governments have thrown more than $600 million at funding high-performance Olympic sports in the four years since the London Games in 2012."

In addition to Government funding, The New Daily highlights that Olympic sports also receive hundreds of millions from corporate sponsors and the International Olympic Committee.

However, since Athens in 2004, this spending has not been enough to keep Australia in the top five-performing nations, which is the stated benchmark of the Australian Sports Commission.

Yet, despite the consistent slide in Olympic performance since 2000, the aggregate rewards flowing to top sports administrators have ballooned.

In the last 16 years the biggest individual beneficiary in the local Olympic Movement has been Coates, who has led the AOC since 1990.

Coates has collected $7.05 million in consulting fees and allowances since 2000 while his total compensation from the Olympic industry is much higher because he has also been receiving fees for being an executive member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

It is not known what his combined earnings have been because the IOC has never disclosed with any precision the real pay of its senior office bearers.

In 2015, as President of the AOC, Coates was paid $237,000 more than the Chief Executive Fiona de Jong.

Coates’ salary package has more than doubled since 2002 when he was collecting $332,515 from the AOC.

Click here to read the original article Medal tally nosedives as AOC salaries soar in The New Daily.

Lower image: John Coates.

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