IOC adopts changes for 2006 Games

 

Trying to put its worst scandal behind it and make sure it doesn't happen again, the International Olympic Committee Thursday adopted several measures aimed at soothing critics. A day after the unprecedented expulsion of six members in the Salt Lake City bribery case, the IOC agreed to choose the site of the 2006 Winter Olympics from two finalists. It also approved creation of an ethics commission with, for the first time, a majority of its members from outside the committee. No appointments were announced. And it released an audit showing that the Olympics are, indeed, in good financial health. Cash, bank deposits and television-rights trust funds totaled $237 million at the end of 1998, and the committee finished the year with a $40 million operating surplus on income of $86 million. The IOC had not issued a unified audit in four years.

"The action today continues to demonstrate our strong commitment to reform," IOC president Juan Antonio Samaranch said.

He said the changes in the site selection rules "will eliminate further opportunities for improprieties in the future and get the IOC back in the business of managing the process of the Olympic Games." The financial report gave a peek at the lifestyle of IOC leadership. It said the IOC paid $204,000 last year to cover the living expenses of Samaranch, an unpaid president, when he was in Lausanne. On the final day of an emergency general assembly to deal with the scandal, the IOC voted unanimously with one abstention to have a 15-member panel trim the six hopefuls for 2006 down to a final pair, then immediately send that race to the floor for a ballot. The plan is designed only for the selection of the 2006 site at a general assembly meeting on June 19 in Seoul, South Korea.

 

The action marks a major shift from the traditional system of letting the members choose from among all bidding cities, a system that became fraught with gifts and freebies and led to the worst scandal in Olympic history. But the change is not as radical as what was first proposed - a total stripping of the 2006 vote from the general membership. That plan produced an uproar from delegates who said they would be punished for the corrupt acts of a few colleagues. The six cities - Sion, Switzerland; Turin, Italy; Helsinki, Finland; Zakopane, Poland; Poprad-Tatry, Slovakia; and Klagenfurt, Austria - will have 50 minutes each to present their final reports to the full IOC on June 18 at the general assembly in Seoul. The next day, the selection panel will be appointed and will review the candidacies and announce its choices. The full membership - now 108 people - will then vote in a secret ballot. Bidders and some IOC members have complained that the new rules and voting procedure allowed too little chance to see and learn about various bids.

"For us and other cities bidding for the first time, it is a hard thing," said Evelina Christillin, the president of Turin's bid.

That northern Italian city generally is considered the second choice behind Sion, in the industrial south of Switzerland about 50 miles from the IOC's headquarters. The expulsions were the first in the history of the IOC. But in Washington, a powerful Republican senator said he wanted to see more fundamental changes in the structure of the old Olympic club. Commerce Committee chairman John McCain of Arizona said the expulsions do "nothing to address the utter lack of transparency and accountability in IOC processes."

McCain's committee has hearings scheduled on the Olympic corruption next month. Before it voted on the expulsions, the IOC gave an 86-2 vote of confidence to Samaranch. But there were signs the 78-year-old Spaniard could be nearing the end of his reign.

"I have personally given the best of myself to the Olympic movement over the last 18 years... and my last service to Olympism would be to restructure our organization in order to enter the new millennium even stronger than before," he said.

The assembly voted to expel six longtime members who investigators said took hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash, travel, medical care and lavish gifts from Salt Lake City bidders who wound up winning the 2002 Winter Games.

 

The six IOC members believed to be the first to be tossed out for corruption are:

 

  • Agustin Arroyo of Ecuador
  • Zein El Abdin Ahmed Abdel Gadir of Sudan
  • Jean-Claude Ganga of the Congo Republic
  • Lamine Keita of Mali
  • Sergio Santander of Chile
  • Paul Wallwork of Samoa
Most of the accused said they were scapegoats.

 

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