A UI-run swimming club is not in direct competition with another Iowa City group and may continue to operate, according to the university’s General Counsel Office.

The university is not allowed to compete directly with private groups. But the Iowa City Eels Swim Club is a nonprofit corporation and therefore does not qualify as a private enterprise, Deputy General Counsel Gay Pelzer concluded in her advisory conclusion.

Club officials claimed the Iowa Flyers, the UI club, caused the Eels to lose 23 percent of its swimmers and created a budget hole.

They had asked that the Iowa Flyers’ USA Swimming license be stripped.

— by Regina Zilbermints