It gives me great pleasure to announce my official start as the new CEO of Lausanne 2020, which began this past March 1, 2016.

As we settled into the press tribune ahead of the Baku 2015 European Games Opening Ceremony at the plush Olympic Stadium, a volunteer began distributing a piece of paper which revealed the name of the headline act; American pop star Lady Gaga.

In many respects the way that sport earns money hasn’t changed much for more than half a century. 

In the maelstrom of lies that swirls around the issue of doping in sport, one occasionally glimpses truth. Even if it confirms wrongdoing, just a glimpse of truth can be strangely reassuring - a reminder that language may, after all, be used for communication rather than obfuscation.

Never underestimate the capacity of an organisation to say one thing and do another.

What, I wonder, would the sadly departed Muhammad Ali have had to say about the very idea of professional boxers mixing it in the Olympic ring with those, who, despite the attempts of the International Boxing Association (AIBA) to persuade us otherwise, are still essentially amateurs.

“We had three main priorities here,” said International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach to open his press conference following last week’s meeting of the Executive Board in Lausanne. “Preparations for Rio, preparations for Rio and preparations for Rio.”

Somewhere in California, FIFA President Gianni Infantino breathed a heavy sigh of relief as the explosive news that former head of the corruption-plagued organisation Sepp Blatter and two other top officials siphoned $80 million (£55 million/€71 million) in bonuses and pay rises hit the headlines.

Muhammad Ali was not someone to argue with, in the ring or out, so when he told the world he was "The Greatest", we believed him, because he surely was. Perhaps not the greatest boxer - Ali himself always acknowledged that Sugar Ray Robinson held that title - but certainly the greatest world heavyweight champion, and, as every opinion poll has ever indicated, the greatest sports figure in history.

Sixty years ago, the city of Melbourne was making ready for the Olympics. It was the first time they had been staged in the Southern Hemisphere, but this sporting gathering did not include equestrian events.

Speaking to the people in charge of the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games bid this week, I was put in mind of British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s comments in launching the Labour Party manifesto as he set out to secure a second term of office following the landslide victory of 1997.

This weekend found me struggling to resurrect my cricket skills in a stunningly verdant corner of Leicestershire barely six miles from the now internationally famous King Power Stadium.

I had a call last week on behalf of the Organising Committee of the Rio Olympics as, I imagine, did some of my colleagues.

This week’s International Olympic Committee (IOC) Executive Board meeting in Lausanne promises to be the most significant not just of Thomas Bach’s tenure, but perhaps ever since the fateful 1998 affair at which former International Ski Federation President Marc Hodler first alerted the world to the simmering Salt Lake City corruption scandal.