Mail & Guardian correspondents report on how the Olympic rings have been tarnished
The Olympic flag fluttered above the new lakeside sports museum in Lausanne, Switzerland. Inside, the activity was frantic as journalists tried to absorb the bewildering array of fresh scandals surrounding the world’s biggest sporting event.
The choice of the museum as the venue for the makeshift media centre last weekend could not have been more ironic. Behind the packs of reporters was a plaque bearing the name of Japanese billionaire Yoshiaki Tsutsumi. He gave $10-million to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to help build the museum when he was a key figure in the campaign to take the 1998 Winter Games to the Japanese city of Nagano.
It will never be known if Tsutsumi’s cash alone clinched the bid – but questions are now being asked about how the Olympic ruling body could have left itself open to such a naked conflict of interest.
The same questions are being raised about every Olympic bid since the late 1980s as the crisis gathers pace.
The IOC’s decision to recommend that six members be expelled over allegations of bribery in Salt Lake City’s winning bid for the 2002 winter games and a radical overhaul of the election system appears to have appeased the multinational sponsors who bankroll the games – in the short term at least.
Under the new system, IOC members will lose the right to vote for a city bidding for the games. An independent committee, made up of eight IOC members, athletes and a representative of the Winter Sports Federation and the National Olympic Committee, will choose the host city.
It is alleged that the games’ organisers at Salt Lake City gave officials cash bribes, gifts and scholarships worth $800 000 in the city’s successful bid to host the 2002 winter Olympics. As if that wasn’t enough, news has emerged that the Australian International Olympic Committee had bought two African delegates by offering their associations $35 000 each on the night before Sydney won the 2000 summer games. It was a crucial intervention: Sydney beat Beijing by just two votes.
The rumours of corruption surrounding the IOC have grown since they were first exposed by journalists Andrew Jennings and Vyv Simson almost 10 years ago in their book The Lords of the Rings. Such claims have always been dismissed by the IOC and its autocratic president.
The IOC line has been helped by sympathetic media coverage given to the denials and the failure of sports writers to follow allegations of bribes.
As the Olympics became more commercial – in the aftermath of the highly successful 1984 Los Angeles Games – so the cash windfall for the winning cities grew. The votes of a small band of 114 men and women – known as the “lords of the rings” – became so crucial that they came to be treated as gods by the bidding cities. They are IOC committee members who are hand- picked by its president, Juan Antonio Samaranch.
They include sporting members of European royalty, such as Princess Anne. There are also many businesspeople and former politicians who owe their positions on the IOC to their influence.
Another controversial figure is Lee Kun Hee, chair of the South Korean electronics giant, Samsung. He was inducted into the IOC just weeks before he was given a suspended two-year jail sentence for bribery. A year after the trial, Samsung promised $40-million to the IOC despite its financial troubles.
Many other members are administrators from very poor countries who have worked their way through national sporting bodies. For them, the vote is a free ticket to luxurious hotels, the best restaurants and lavish hospitality all over the world.
Take Manchester’s failed bid for the 2000 Games. “It was a gross lobbying process in which the victims were entertained to within an inch of their lives,” said Sir Bob Scott, organiser of the city’s bid. “Some were genuinely interested in our capacity to hold the games, and some were quite simply venal.”
But Manchester knew what was required. A dossier was compiled on each member listing enthusiasms, hobbies and interests. The member for Ecuador was a keen pedigree dog breeder. When he visited Manchester, he was introduced to one of Britain’s top breeders who brought with him litters of puppies.
The member for India was given help to get his daughter into the London School of Economics, and others were given small gifts related to their interests. But some wanted more.
One member – whose name the Manchester organising committee will not reveal – approached Scott claiming thousands of dollars worth of jewellery had been stolen from his room. “It was clear he wanted us to pay for it,” said Scott. But when the theft was reported to the police, the member decided not to pursue the complaint, claiming it would delay his flight home.
Another member was caught claiming for first-class air tickets he never used. Both incidents were reported to the IOC, but neither was investigated. “Nobody complains publicly because there is no way they will win next time,” says Jennings.
The Swedes made the same mistake as Manchester. They complained privately about the activities of an African delegate who propositioned three official hostesses in a Stockholm hotel, trapping one in a lift and demanding sex. Nothing was done.
Everything changed last month when Swiss lawyer Marc Hodler broke ranks with his fellow IOC members. He disclosed that Salt Lake City had used a $400 000 scholarship fund to provide aid to 13 people, including six relatives of IOC members, and had provided $28 000-worth of free medical treatment to help it win the 2002 winter games.
The claims provoked outrage, particularly from the losing cities, such as Quebec, which are now seeking compensation.
But there was more. As an FBI investigation started in Utah, it emerged that IOC members had also accepted cash payments of $70 000, skis, guns and other gifts.
The IOC was finally forced into an embarrassing investigation of itself. The members from Libya, Kenya and Swaziland have resigned. Libya’s Bashir Mohamed Attarabulsi’s son received tuition fees and $800-a-month expenses to attend college in the United States, paid for by Salt Lake City’s bidders. Those facing expulsion at the special IOC meeting in March are the members for Ecuador, Sudan, Mali, the Republic of Congo and Chile.
Compounding these explosive revelations has been the news from Sydney, where the Australian Olympic Committee president, John Coates, revealed that he promised the voting members from Kenya and Uganda annual payments of $5 000 a year to their home Olympic associations on the eve of the final vote in Monte Carlo for the 2000 Games.
Coates had believed the city’s chances were “slipping away”. “I thought it was necessary for us to show our commitment to those National Olympic Committees with a view to winning those votes,” he said.
It is possible that the two African members may have voted against Sydney. No one will ever know because the votes are secret.