David Shapshak and Joyce Barrett
The Cape Town Olympic bid team knew an International Olympic Committee (IOC) member was “available to the highest bidder”, but it did not make use of this information to influence the bid.
Caught up in the biggest corruption scandal of the IOC’s 105-year history, disgraced Swaziland IOC member David Sibandze has readily admitted that he frequently received gifts from Olympic bid committees, including paintings and pieces of sculpture from the Salt Lake City panel, but denied he has done anything improper.
A former Cape Town bid committee member said it was “common knowledge” that Sibandze “could have been bought. The word was out that he was open to offers from anyone.
“It wasn’t just a rumour. It had some basis in fact and has been borne out by what has come out now,” said the member on condition of anonymity.
Sibandze says he only resigned from the IOC last weekend after 15 years on the body because he feared it was preparing to expel him for accepting a $100 000 scholarship in Salt Lake City for his son.
He is one of nine members, six of them African, whom the IOC has recommended should be purged. In the past week, the IOC has been rocked by allegations that its members received pay-offs in Sydney, where Australia will host the 2000 summer games, and in Salt Lake City, Utah’s selection as host for the 2002 Winter Games.
Cape Town bid chief executive Chris Ball said, “Sibandze didn’t ask for any gifts from us,” and that no impropriety had taken place.
The mother city’s bid team was accused of bribery just before the announcement in September 1997 that Athens would host the 2004 Olympic Games when it emerged that the National Olympic Committee of South Africa had paid for the plane tickets to Lusanne for some wives of IOC delegates.
Robert Magagula, vice-president of the Swaziland National Olympic Committee, said gift-giving to IOC members was blatant. “They used to push trolleys of gifts to IOC members,” he says.
Magagula is concerned that the African involvement in the IOC scandal will taint future African leaders on international committees.
“The world will think we can’t have credible African leaders unless we put watchdogs to keep tabs on them,” he says.