The infighting behind Cape Town’s attempt to host the 2004 Olympics is detailed in a new book
Martin Gillingham
Former Cape Town Olympic bid boss Raymond Ackerman has stepped up his campaign against Sam Ramsamy by claiming that the South African Olympic chief had told him the only way he could win the race to host the 2004 games was through bribery.
Ackerman claims in his autobiography, published last week, that Ramsamy urged him to establish a “war chest”. The slush fund was to be controlled by Ramsamy and “to be available to provide whatever he might think necessary in future, over and above the rules of the IOC”.
The Pick ‘n Pay chief, who quit the bid in 1995 after a series of clashes with Ramsamy, is on a tour promoting the book and has confirmed that the “war chest” was nothing more than a fund to bribe the 100 or so members of the International Olympic Committee. “That’s exactly the position,” Ackerman says. “He told us we wouldn’t win if we followed the IOC rules.
“He wasn’t looking for any of the money for himself. He just felt that from the experience he had and from the countries that had won before you just don’t get it by following the rules.”
Ackerman remains a solid supporter of those within sporting and political circles who believe South Africa should bid to host the Olympic Games again. But he believes it’s impossible for a bid to succeed with Ramsamy at the helm of the National Olympic Committee of South Africa (Nocsa). “We need a change of leadership and a change of direction because I don’t believe we have the spirit or the sort of leadership that would allow us to win a bid,” he says.
The latest revelations are bound to turn up the heat on Ramsamy, who was castigated by the former Cape Town bid co-chair and now Minister of Sport and Recreation, Ngconde Balfour, following the South African team’s return from last year’s Olympic Games in Sydney. But anyone close to the bidding processes of the 2004 Games, or indeed the 2006 World Cup for that matter, will probably have you believe that Ramsamy’s approach was more that of a pragmatist than a corrupt man.
Having said that, there is little doubt that Ramsamy has much to answer for in his stewardship of the 2004 bidding process. “From the day we won (the domestic race to bid for the games ahead of Johannesburg and Durban) all I got was undermining and criticism,” Ackerman says.
Though he too has been reluctant to discuss his relationship with Ramsamy, Ackerman’s successor as 2004 bid chief, Chris Ball, is known to have encountered difficulties with the Nocsa president.
Ackerman must, however, shoulder some blame for his own demise. He talks in his book of how Ramsamy had told him he was nave. Indeed, many of his actions suggest Ramsamy was right. After all, he projected an image of a bid run as a personal fiefdom with his wife, Wendy, as his number two.
Balfour was, in name at least, his co-chair but even his loyalty to Ackerman was proved to be wafer-thin once push came to shove and Ramsamy really got about undermining the bid leader.
Balfour was the politically acceptable face in the bid and when his masters decided the time had come to abandon Ackerman he soon followed.
Ackerman’s other failings concern his identification of what it takes to win an Olympic bid. Despite his considerable business experience and expertise, Ackerman’s trump card was the emotional pull of a first African games and the Mandela factor. Both were cards played at the final presentation in Lausanne. That was a process that embarrassed the former president and saw the bid come within a single vote of first-round elimination. The lesson to be learnt from that is that the IOC doesn’t make decisions on emotion.
There was also a gross underestimation of the abilities of Ramsamy. In Ackerman’s defence, however, Ramsamy’s talents are not always directed at the most constructive tasks. His treatment of Ackerman was, frequently, unreasonable and, from time to time, downright shabby. But Ramsamy has, through necessity, become a street fighter with a zeal and sense of self-preservation that borders on paranoia. No decision is made within Nocsa without his approval and since his return to South Africa a decade ago he has had to fight off several challenges from more politically powerful figures than himself. The Pick ‘n Pay chief may have few equals in the retail business but when it came to Olympic matters he stepped into another domain. And there the rules are set by Ramsamy. Sadly for Ackerman, by the time he’d realised that, it was too late.
Hearing Grasshoppers Jump, The Story of Raymond Ackerman as told to Denise Prichard, is published by David Philip
ENDS