Singapore marathoner Soh Rui Yong disagreed with mainstream reports by insisting that there is a way for athletes to promote SNOC sponsors together with the own sponsors:
“If an athlete brings his own personal sponsors onboard, there will be no way to regulate this.”
I stand by my earlier points – you can regulate even with personal sponsors, such as the 1-for-1 suggestion: Making it compulsory for athletes to promote one SNOC sponsor for every one of their own sponsors that the athlete promotes.
That way, more sponsors can come to the table to support athletes and sport on the whole, and everyone is better off. We need to get rid of the mentality that someone’s gain always has to come at the expense of someone else.