Bach yesterday did his best to give the IOC Session a power it no longer has by insisting the final decision on Brisbane staging the Games in 2032 rests with the membership when it gathers on the eve of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics on July 21.

The astute German lawyer is technically correct. Brisbane, seemingly a shoo-in to be allocated the 2032 hosting rights for the best part of two years, does need to be ratified by the Session.

But the "vote" Bach referenced on several occasions during his media conference is a vote in name only. To suggest otherwise is disingenuous at best.

More accurately, it is a rubber-stamping the IOC is trying to mask as an election.

Not only is there a single candidate for the Games, but this incarnation of IOC members, as noted countless times on these pages, is among the most sycophantic in recent memory.

"I've been around long enough never to take it for granted," Coates, the President of the Australian Olympic Committee, said today.

Coates has also been around long enough to know the IOC membership rarely, if ever, disagrees with the wants and wishes of the leadership.

More from the man who orchestrated the very changes to the bidding process that has cleared the path for Brisbane to be the first city to be awarded the Games under the new system: "You never know with the IOC members."

Yes we do, John. If the IOC electorate is anything, it is predictable in its unwavering and steadfast support for the preferred option of Bach and his administration.

While I have no doubt the 2032 Games in Brisbane and other areas of Queensland will be a success, the new system has failed to achieve one of its key aims - to end the trend of there being "too many losers", in the words of Bach.

Any sort of competition - even one conducted largely in secret - results in winners and losers.

India, Germany, Indonesia, Hungary, Qatar and a fanciful joint bid from North and South Korea were among those to express varying degrees of interest in hosting the 2032 Games, but were barely given a look in.

With the greatest of respect to them, are they not, by definition, losers?

By opening a so-called dialogue process and without asking for formal bids, isn’t the new way of doing things in fact creating more losers than before?

Brisbane, in this example, is the clear winner. Yes, at least the other candidates did not splash out exorbitant amounts of money on their campaigns, but that is a small victory for countries who are desperate to bring the Olympics to their respective nations - especially as some of them could have afforded to anyway.

Those that have indicated a willingness to have entered talks with the IOC so far could feasibly be superseded by others by the time the organisation comes around to picking the host for 2036.

By then, there may be clamour to have the Olympics in Africa for the first time, while European and South American cities will be thinking it is their turn.

There is nothing wrong with picking the best candidate - even those in the running with Brisbane will probably concede that - but it is the way the IOC has gone about it which has sparked justifiable criticism.

The cloak-and-dagger approach saw a small group of IOC members - all of which were appointed to their positions on the Future Host Commission by Bach himself - identify Brisbane as the prime candidate.

The Australian city was then installed as the preferred bidder by the IOC Executive Board, which led to exclusive talks between the Commission and Brisbane officials and yesterday’s recommendation from the ruling body to the Session.

By my calculations, more than three-quarters of the IOC membership will not have had any say whatsoever in the process, until the Session gives the Brisbane proposal the green light.

At least they had this under the old system, where the electorate would have the choice between two, three, four or even five cities when it came to the dramatic, tension-filled vote at the Session.

When asked about criticism of the process, Bach went through a timeline of the reforms, starting with approval from the IOC Session in 2019 before referencing the backing of organisations such as the Association of National Olympic Committees.

What Bach neglected to mention was how most of these Olympic bodies are subservient to the IOC and are not likely to challenge any decisions or offer any opposition to changes, even those as significant as the overhaul of the bidding system. They are all wary of not biting off the hands that feed them.

As expected, the vote which pitted Milan and Cortina d'Ampezzo against Stockholm-Åre for the right to stage the 2026 Winter Olympics at the 2019 IOC Session - the same meeting where the sweeping changes to the bid process were approved - will be the last of its kind.

The manner in which Brisbane secured the Games is the way it will be from now on - behind-closed-doors talks with cities who have expressed an interest, a recommendation of a few members, the inevitable approval from the Executive Board and the even more inevitable support from the Session.

So, ignore the bureaucrats, Queenslanders: The 2032 Games are yours.