Sheikh Ahmad Al-Fahad Al-Sabah, who led the OCA for 30 years until 2021, was sat in a hotel suite not very far from the Convention Centre at Centralworld in Bangkok, where the OCA General Assembly was taking place, expertly moving the pieces around the board like he was playing an online chess game until he was able to declare "checkmate".

The election of Sheikh Talal ensured that the OCA remained under the control of the House of Sabah.

The OCA was founded in 1982 by his father Fahad Al-Ahmed Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, who led it until 1990 when he was killed defending Dasman Palace on the first day of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait.

Sheikh Ahmad had succeeded him the following year and had led the organisation until two years ago when he was forced to step down after being found guilty of forgery in a court in Geneva and sentenced to at least 13 months in prison and was temporarily replaced by India's Randhir Singh.

The full apparatus of the Kuwait state was thrown behind ensuring they retained charge of the OCA with insidethegames being told that Prime Minister Sheikh Ahmad Nawaf Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah personally intervened by contacting a member of the royal family in at least one Arab state and persuading them to vote for Sheikh Talal.

The rehabilitation of Sheikh Ahmad in Kuwaiti society is remarkable. He was cast out into the cold, remember, because in 2013 his allies claimed to possess tapes purportedly showing that Nasser Al-Mohammed and former Parliament Speaker Jassem Al-Kharafi were discussing plans to topple the Kuwaiti Government. 

Sheikh Ahmad even appeared on local television describing what was happening, later being forced to issue a public apology on state media renouncing the coup allegations when it was proved they had been fabricated.

In 2015, he was convicted of "disrespect to the public prosecutor and attributing a remark to the country’s ruler without a special permission from the Emir’s court," although that was later overturned.

The fallout from the fake coup plot led to Sheikh Ahmad, along with four others, being charged in Switzerland with forgery related to staging a sham arbitration in the country to authenticate a video after claims put forth by lawyers representing Al-Mohammad and Al-Kharafi.

It was this that forced him in 2018 to self-suspend himself as an International Olympic Committee (IOC) member and stepping down as President of the Association of National Olympic Committees.

In September 2021, Sheikh Ahmad was convicted for forgery along with the four other defendants. He has subsequently appealed against the sentence and is currently waiting for the verdict to be delivered.

The re-appointment as Kuwait Prime Minister last month of close friend Sheikh Ahmad al-Nawaf has led to a political comeback for Sheikh Ahmad that Cincinnatus would have been proud of. He now holds two of the most senior posts in his country, that of Defence Minister and Deputy Prime Minister.

According to the World Bank, Kuwait spends 6.7 per cent of its gross domestic product on defence spending, one of the highest in the world, meaning that remaining on good terms with Sheikh Ahmad is particularly important to any country that exports weapons - which is a lot.

The fear at IOC headquarters in Lausanne is that Sheikh Ahmad is now intent on launching a similar comeback in the Olympics.

Until the OCA General Assembly last Saturday (July 8), most people would either have forgotten about Sheikh Ahmad or assumed his influence over what happens in the Olympic Movement had now diminished. What happened in Bangkok proved he is not the spent force that the IOC would have hoped he was.

Sheikh Ahmad strikes fear into the IOC the same way Lord Voldemort does to the witches and wizards in Harry Potter, who dare not utter his name and refer to him instead as "You-Know-Who," "He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named" or the "Dark Lord".

The tension between him and the IOC had been kept mostly under wraps until it became clear last week the leading role he was playing in ensuring that his brother got elected. The IOC had been backing Husain Al-Musallam, the President of World Aquatics and as general director of the OCA, the former right-hand man of Sheik Ahmad.

The 62-year-old Al-Musallam, also from Kuwait, had probably put himself at risk by standing against a member of his country's Royal Family and the repercussions if he had won could have been far-reaching for both him and the OCA, whose headquarters are based in the oil rich state at the tip of the Persian Gulf.

Sheikh Ahmad had travelled to Thailand's capital to lead the campaign for his brother in direct opposition to a warning not to from the IOC’s chief ethics and compliance officer Pâquerette Girard Zappelli. She had claimed that it "could be considered as an interference within the OCA activities" and threatened that it "may be taken into consideration by the IOC Ethics Commission" - a clear signal that he faced the threat of being expelled.

The IOC gambled on hoping their warnings would make him think twice and adopt, at least, a lower profile. That seriously underestimated how important it was to him that the House of Sabah kept control of the OCA.

What to do now? Before the vote started in Thailand, the chair of the OCA's Ethics Committee, Wei Jizhong, warned that they had spotted signs of "irregularities" that they planned to investigate after the election. Its unlikely those "investigations" will go any further now that Sheikh Talal is in charge of the organisation.

The IOC have so far failed to follow up their threats before the election with any sort of public declaration that they are planning to investigate what happened in Bangkok, probably hoping that the row will die down and Sheikh Ahmad will return home happy to Kuwait knowing he has satisfied family honour. 

Their fear will be, however, that he now mounts a full campaign to return to his former role as Olympics "kingmaker". There is only two years left until the IOC is scheduled to hold an election to choose a successor to Thomas Bach, whose maximum 12-year reign will end in 2025 having been elected in 2013 following a campaign where Sheikh Ahmad used all his influence to ensure he won.

That IOC Session in Buenos Aires 10 years ago demonstrated just how important Sheikh Ahmad had become within the Olympic Movement. There were three major decisions taken during those momentous few days and he played probably the biggest role in influencing them all. Besides the election of Bach, there was the vote to keep wrestling on the Olympic programme and the award of the 2020 Games to Tokyo.

When Sheikh Ahmad turned up at Tokyo’s celebration party that night, he was greeted like a rock star by star struck Japanese supporters and at the end was practically carried out of the room on the shoulders of grateful officials from the Bid Committee.

But, once he got his feet under the table at Lausanne, Bach soon made it clear to everyone that there was room for only one powerbroker in the Olympic Movement. The Sheikh's downfall in Kuwait was not something that Bach spent much time crying over. 

Arabs take their devotions towards others very seriously and Bach's lack of support is not something that will be easily forgiven or forgotten.

The fact that Sheikh Talal only beat Al-Musallam by 24 votes to 20 to win the OCA election following some serious pressure being applied in the last few hours before the election would appear to indicate that Sheikh Ahmad’s influence has waned slightly. That could be restored quickly if he returns to frontline Olympic politics.

Bach’s original plan to seek an extension as IOC President seems to have been shelved and he will now be happy to play a role in picking who succeeds him, ensuring he retains a measure of control. He will fear that this could be disrupted if Sheik Ahmad plays an active role in the election. It is unlikely, he would support the same candidate that Bach is widely assumed to be backing.

The key to Sheikh Ahmad's role in Olympic politics will hinge on the outcome of the appeal against his criminal conviction in Switzerland. Kuwait is a major investor in Switzerland and the Government in Bern will not want relations disrupted by a high-profile case involving its Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister.

Does anyone seriously believe Sheikh Ahmad will spend 13 seconds in a Swiss prison, let alone 13 months? 

If he wins that appeal, then many believe Sheikh Talal will step down at the OCA to allow his older brother to return to a role that means so much to him. Clearing his name, would also allow Sheikh Ahmad to resume his IOC membership. 

Having been elected when he was only 27, and not turning 60 until next month, he could have another 20 years ahead of him on the IOC before he reaches the maximum age.

If that happens, then the Sheikh really will be back in the game. 

Big-time.