The extent of the rift between the two most powerful men in Australia’s Olympic arena has been laid bare with Australian Olympic Committee president John Coates saying he could never work with Sport Australia chairman John Wylie “because of how he tried to interfere in the free elections of the AOC” three years ago.

Coates and Wylie have been at loggerheads since the aftermath of the Rio Olympics, with the former admitting to calling the latter a “c—“ and a “liar” to his face at an athletics event in Melbourne in 2017, a confrontation that came at a time when the AOC was in the midst of a workplace bullying scandal and as former Olympic hockey gold medallist Danni Roche mounted a campaign to dislodge Coates as president after 27 years.

AOC president John Coates is no fan of John Wylie. Credit:Matt King

There has been a public resumption of hostilities as cash-strapped Olympic sports argue for increased federal government funding beyond the Tokyo Games this year.

They share the same desire for a $60 million-a-year increase in the overall pot of money delivered from Canberra but are on different pages in terms of how it should be distributed. The AOC primarily favours direct grants to sports over programs funded by the Australian Institute of Sport, which is run under the umbrella of the former Australian Sports Commission, as well as less emphasis on which sports win medals.

But Coates admits his long-running feud with Wylie has become personal, pointing to Wylie’s role in the unsuccessful challenge three years ago by Roche, who had been an ASC director, for the AOC presidency as the reason.

"I can't have a relationship with him because of how he tried to interfere in the free elections of the AOC. It's as simple as that," Coates told the ABC podcast The Ticket.

“He asked [Swimming Australia president John] Bertrand, he asked [then AOC board member James] Tomkins, he asked other people whether they would stand against me. It was clearly a takeover of the AOC. He’s never acknowledged that we should be entitled … not just us but the national federations, to free elections. I think that’s fundamental.

“I think that the role of the Sports Commission is as a service provider. I think it’s wrong for the Sports Commission to try and take control of the AOC. It was because of the money we have in the foundation, I know that. Danni made that clear when she spoke to our athletes’ commission at one stage.

“Have a look through all the national federations where he helped people become presidents of those. They all voted against me. So it was at a sport level as well that he was interfering. His philosophy and perhaps his corporate background does not recognise the independence of the national federations, just as he does not recognise the independence of the AOC. He’s never apologised, he’s never acknowledged it. We had our tete-a-tete at the Nitro athletics [in 2017] … he just denied it.”

Wylie has refrained from entering a public slanging match with Coates but penned a newspaper column for News Corp last week in which he called for a “unity ticket” between the AOC and SA ahead of Tokyo. Coates' response to it was that the investment banker was suffering from “relevance deprivation syndrome”.

Wylie declined to comment when contacted on Sunday.

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