Kaljulaid, who was President of Estonia 2016-2021, was elected to the EOK post in 2024, but has faced strong criticism, mostly on funding issues, but which some observers have come to see as a clash of world views.
Kaljulaid, in this thesis, represents the “new” way of doing things, while some of those who signed the motion for a vote to get her ousted, including decathlete Erki Nool, represent the old guard.
Now working as a coach, Nool, 2000 Sydney Olympics gold medalist, has been exceptionally critical of Kersti Kaljulaid as EOK president, elected to the post in 2024.
Nool has backed a motion of no-confidence in Kaljulaid as EOK leader, and the organization is to meet at a general meeting next Monday for that purpose.
The attendance of 62 of the 123 EOK members is needed to get a quorum, and a straight majority is needed to remove an official from office.
Heino Märks, a former defense forces sports chief last month submitted a demand signed by 13 members, including Nool, to hold the meeting and to vote on the motion. Märks says he is confident of the motion passing.
Nool: ‘the biggest criminal nowadays is the white, middle-aged man’
To the outside observer, the turn of events may seem like a case of an “old school” revolt of men, against a woman leader; Nool himself noted that “the biggest criminal nowadays is the white middle-aged man,” adding “the working man is society’s greatest criminal.”
Speaking to ETV “Impulss,” he denied that there was such a split among coaches, however.
At issue, for Nool, is changes Kaljulaid promised when entering office, replacing businessman Urmas Sõõrumaa, who was EOK president from 2016 until losing the vote to Kaljulaid.
Changes inevitably bring dissatisfaction when someone loses funding, Nool said, adding “the biggest change is that sponsors are running away. Some have remained in sport out of a sense of duty, but they have already been planning to leave for the second year.”
More sponsors are planning to leave, and they are not being replaced by new ones, he added.
If this kind of spiteful dragging-on continues, the image of sport will decline further. I think the EOK’s image has never been as low in society as it is now,” Nool concluded.
Nool also said the main aim of elite sports, its defining characteristic, is to win competitions. “If we think that we do not need medals, as President Kaljulaid says, then that is exactly the direction we are heading in,” Nool added.
Nool also said millions of euros allocated to elite sports are “disappearing,” putting the figure at €12 million. Particularly lacking is funding to category-C competitors, those who have potential. The same can be said for youth sport funding, and funding for coaching, Nool added.
“Don’t talk garbage by saying that there is two million more money. I, who am in the gym every day, see that less money is going to sports. I don’t agree with that and that’s all there is. I would have to respond that this is bullshit,” Nool went on.
“This system has been changed a lot in the past year. There were two people who made the decision,” on Team Estonia funding, Nool added.
Kaljulaid: Elite sports is about both medals and stories
Both Kaljulaid and Märks also spoke to ETV’s “Impulss.”
Kaljulaid rejected Nool’s claim that she thought medals unimportant. “I have never said that medals are not needed,” Kaljulaid said.
“[Biathlete] Regina Ermits spoke on the program ‘Hommik Anuga’ about how she has not been very talented and added apologetically at the end that she has not won any medals — as if she had no right to feel proud of her achievements. I argue that all of those stories together are more valuable than just stories about medals. Stories about not winning a medal are also valuable. [Fencer] Nelli Differt’s fourth place [at the Paris Olympics] — that is a story. [Decathlete] Heino Lipp never got to the Olympics at all (due to the Soviet occupation of Estonia – ed.) — that is a story. Elite sport has more to offer society if we look at it more broadly, which of course does not mean that a medal is not the most important thing an elite athlete should strive for.”
Kaljulaid also dismissed Nool’s claim of a mass exodus of sponsors, too, noting the only major sponsor actually to have pulled out, US Invests, belongs to her predecessor, Sõõrumaa, in any case, while some new blood has come in too.
“We certainly did not previously have a sponsor like Škoda, and now we are even in a position where we are holding back a couple of good sponsorship announcements so as not to let them drown in this situation,” she noted.
As for youth sport funding, the EOK president said: “We decided to give youth sports funding directly to the federations and let them decide, because with young athletes it is often the case that one set of people is in the boat in autumn and another in spring. The elite sports commission is too far removed from that situation, and besides, the federations deserve the responsibility of being able to make those decisions themselves. The federations can distribute the money themselves; they can decide whether to pay it to individual athletes as support, send them to training camps, and so on. This is a decision made by the EOK board — which Erki Nool is also a member of — not by two men, as he had said.”
Kaljulaid calls for full attendance at Monday’s general meeting
Kaljulaid called on all EOK members to attend Monday’s general meeting, adding “a lot of people called me on Sunday evening after Mr. Märks’s television interview.” In that interview (link in Estonian), Märks forecast 70 votes in favor of ousting Kaljulaid, which would be a majority even with a 100 percent turnout of delegates.
Kaljulaid said the people who called her Sunday “were puzzled and asked whether I was really convening the general assembly because of this issue. I said that of course I am not convening it because of this issue; I am convening it because 13 voting members of the EOK have said that they want to discuss it. My understanding is that the sports federations and county sports associations generally value the management changes we have made, but there are organizations that were used to coming to the EOK and receiving support for something. That support no longer exists and they are against us — I understand that as well,” Kaljulaid said.
Märks said that youth sports funding at just €32,000 currently was too low, adding “we do not see any additional money coming from anywhere. We heard that €500,000 will remain somewhere in reserve, but where are the additional funds? I know that the funding levels were increased to some extent, but the numbers do not add up. In November and December 2025, zero euros were transferred to young athletes, and young people no longer have support services.”
Sports journalist: Episode represents a clash of worldviews
Sports journalist Ott Järvela, also appearing on Tuesday’s edition of “Impulss,” said what is currently happening in Estonian sport comes down to a difference of worldviews: Kaljulaid’s and that of her predecessor.
“It is worth recalling October 2024, when Kersti Kaljulaid was elected president of the Estonian Olympic Committee. It was a very close election and clearly also a choice between worldviews in terms of what kind of president the EOK would have. Kersti Kaljulaid represented one type, and her opposing candidate, Urmas Sõõrumaa in the second round, represented another type. It is obvious that this confrontation has not eased over the past year and a half. In sports administration it is usually the case that once the elections are over and the mandate has been given, that mandate is allowed to run its course and then a new decision is made. Right now those tensions are still present,” Järvela said.
Also appearing on the show was elite biathlete Johanna Talihärm, in February elected as the first ever Estonian member of the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) Athletes’ Commission.
Talihärm said that she personally, “as a B-category athlete … did not feel any decrease” in funding. “The biggest change in the Team Estonia system has affected youth sport,” Talihärm added.
Estonian cyclists’ union chief: EOK scandal blown out of proportion
Meanwhile chair of the Estonian cyclists union (Eesti Jalgratturite Liit) Raivo Rand said the no-confidence bid against Kersti Kaljulaid is overblown. EOK reforms are only now starting to deliver, he went on.
“I think this scandal has been blown up over very little, and some of the facts have been exaggerated in a rather ridiculous way,” Rand, a construction businessman, told ERR Sport.
“This EOK system, especially the distribution of youth funding, is in my opinion the right one and is only now beginning to produce results. At the moment, the executive committee is working very hard, and the entire EOK leadership is working very hard. The fact that youth sports funding is no longer allocated by name gives certain federations a very good opportunity to direct the money exactly where it is needed.”
He added that in his sport, there are no major issues in road cycling, the main discipline in Estonia, adding that newer disciplines such as BMX and cyclo-cross are being developed, “and we can direct money there where it is needed.”
“When I have spoken with other federations, I do not see any broad-based lack of confidence anywhere,” he continued.
“There are a few who say they do not like it — and of course, in any kind of leadership and organization there are always people who dislike something. It is clear that there is little money in sport. Sponsors at the level of those who appear on the EOK wall are not easy to find. Sponsors have to be found in amounts of three, five and ten thousand. These new initiatives — for example, the Minu Sportlane platform — will start working, but it will not happen overnight. I can see it in the cycling federation itself, how difficult it was to find sponsors at first. Once you finally start finding them, then things begin to work,” Rand concluded.
Rein Esaul, one of the 13 members who signed the no-confidence motion in Kaljulaid and president of the sled sports federation, had told “Impulss” however that “our funding is, honestly, practically nonexistent.”
Estonian law is written in such a way that they are unable to give us anything,” he went on, adding: “We have sat down with Kersti Kaljulaid a couple of times, talked about these things, and we were promised help, but by now even our training camp preparation funds have been taken away. For us, the situation has become economically worse.”
Lavly Perling: Easier to destroy than to build
Another figure who has come to Kaljulaid’s defense is newly elected Estonian Fencing Federation (Eesti Vehklemisliit) president and Parempoolsaid leader Lavly Perling, who was sanguine about the prospects of some consensus being found ahead of and at Monday’s meeting.
“A small country needs heroes. Sport is what gives us those heroes. In response to the board meeting: I saw that common ground exists. I am grateful to all the sports clubs that said with their vote: come, let’s try together,” Perling, a former prosecutor general, told ETV’s sport program.
The fencing federation’s outdated statutes need to be modernized, she added, despite the successes the sport has brought for Estonia.
The EOK general meeting takes place on an extraordinary basis, next Monday, April 27.
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Source:
‘Impulss,’ presenter Joseph Vark.
