Behind the scenes though, another issue has started to emerge.

What is more, in the long run this will probably have a bigger bearing on the power relationships that shape international sport than any blowback from the appalling war in Ukraine.

I was alerted to what appears to be afoot by a sentence buried in last week’s press release from the Association of Summer Olympic International Federations (ASOIF).

This stated that the ASOIF Council "took note that various significant initiatives of the [International Olympic Committee] (IOC), namely the Olympic Qualifier Series, the Olympic Virtual Series and Olympic qualification branding, undertaken in the context of the IOC's Olympic Agenda 2020+5 Recommendation 6, had caused certain challenges".

What, I wondered, might these "challenges" be?

To comprehend the answer to this question, it helps to recall the simple but essential insight formulated all those years ago by Patrick Nally, father of sports marketing.

This was that, in the domain of sponsorship, exclusivity is king: to earn the big bucks, the owners of sports properties must offer clients exclusivity in their product categories.

In this sense, less was more.

It is the foundation on which the multibillion-dollar edifice that is today’s sports marketing industry has been built.

Now, let’s go back to Agenda 2020+5, which included two suggestions in particular related to Olympic qualifying.

The first was to use Olympic branding to "elevate the profile" of Olympic qualifying events; the second, to introduce new multi-sports qualifiers.

Last April, indeed, the IOC announced a four-sport qualifier series, including BMX, breaking, skateboarding and sport climbing.

Qualification is to be contested in a series of three "festival-style" events in city-centre venues between March and June 2024.

Neither initiative seems a bad idea; but equally, it comes as little surprise to find that attempting to implement them has apparently thrown up "challenges".

As I wrote in February 2021, just after Agenda 2020+5's publication, "I suspect this might get political". 

Having made certain inquiries, my understanding now is that it is "getting commercial" as well.

Think back to Nally’s doctrine of exclusivity, and then consider that 15 multinational companies have spent heavily to be part of the IOC’s The Olympic Partner (TOP) worldwide sponsorship programme, purchasing exclusive marketing rights in their respective product categories.

But many International Sports Federations (IFs) have their own worldwide sponsors, with their own exclusive product categories, which are sometimes more or less identical to the TOP categories.

If Olympic branding is to be extended to the qualifying events of the various Olympic sports and there is a clash of exclusivities, whose exclusivity prevails?

Let me give a specific example: BMX freestyle is a form of cycling, whose governing body is the International Cycling Union (UCI).

On its website, the UCI lists Tissot among its "world cycling partners"; yet the Olympic timekeeper is Omega.

Who is going to take precedence at those "festival-style" qualifiers in 2024?

Wouldn’t it be brilliant if the event began with a BMX freestyle contest between the Tissot and Omega bosses, with the exclusive rights going to the winner?

Something tells me this is not going to happen.

In fact, further investigation indicates that Tissot and Omega both appear to be part of the Swatch Group, as is another prominent sports sponsor, Longines.

So such branding niceties could probably, in this case, be thrashed out internally.

However, I do not see Rolex among Swatch’s stable of brands, nor do I see Seiko, or Hublot.

So it does seem to me that overlapping exclusivities may be a factor in limiting the use of Olympic branding for qualifying events, at least in the run-up to Paris 2024, while the concept is bedding down.

Moreover, even if IFs do not currently have their own sponsors in any TOP category, might they not in some cases be wary about signing off on contracts that could, effectively, preclude them for long periods from shopping for new sponsors in those TOP categories?

Perhaps the IOC will offer to pay them to forgo the right to hunt for sponsors in these areas.

More likely, I suspect, is that Lausanne would try to persuade IFs that the benefits of adding Olympic branding to their events would outweigh any possible downside of that sort, while pointing out that sports will get their Olympic dividends in due course, shortly after the Games.

It also occurred to me that there might be occasions when those attempting to organise Olympic-branded qualifiers could find themselves trying to juggle more than two sets of overlapping exclusivities.

Paris 2024, after all, has its own stable of sponsors; if qualifying events take place on French soil, would their exclusive rights also need to be taken into account?

And what about other prospective qualifying event hosts?

Would their ability to find local sponsors be constrained by the rights already reserved for IOC and IF partners? If so, might that discourage cities from throwing their hats into the ring?

Is the IOC, for that matter, planning to control hospitality for Olympic-branded qualifying events?

Centralised hospitality is, after all, another Agenda 2020+5 proposal.

There are also, I am told, concerns of a more political nature.

These relate ultimately to the fear that the IOC might in time take effective control of the Olympic qualifying process, traditionally the province of the IFs.

This might be why ASOIF has asked its Commercial Advisory Group - comprised of top executives from seven leading sports - to "assess the situation" and "provide support to the IFs to address the issues".

With so much devil in the detail, it is starting to look like this IOC initiative around Olympic-branded qualifying events may be slower to take off than the IOC might perhaps wish, especially with regard to the more commercially-appealing Summer Olympic sports.

A further thought occurs: perhaps the IOC can use the Paris 2024 boxing qualifiers to try to showcase the concept to best advantage.

The IOC President has enormous powers of persuasion - both carrots and sticks - at his disposal, but I suspect that quite a few IFs are likely to require tangible evidence of how this innovation will benefit them, their hardcore fans and their commercial supporters before jumping on board.