WinterSports2002.com - Utahns present case before IOC

WinterSports2002.com, Saturday, December 12, 1998

Utahns present case before IOC

LAUSANNE, Switzerland—Organizers of the 2002 Winter Games had little to say after making a 1 1/2-hour appearance Friday night before a special International Olympic Committee investigative panel.

"The process is ongoing. We have no comment," a tired-looking Frank Joklik told reporters from the passenger seat of a sedan driven by IOC Director General Francois Carrard before speeding away from Olympic headquarters.

By the time the session with the IOC ad-hoc committee ended at 8:30 p.m. it had been a long day for Joklik, the chief executive officer of the Salt Lake Organizing Committee.

He arrived in Lausanne Friday morning to find that the IOC was set on investigating a financial assistance program started by the Salt Lake Bid Committee in 1991.

Before the financial assistance program was discontinued earlier this year, SLOC said, it provided nearly $400,000 to 13 people, including six relatives of IOC members.

What had started two weeks ago as a local news story has turned into what is believed to be the first-ever probe into the possibility that a bid committee tried to buy IOC votes.

The word "bribe" is being used by people like Marc Hodler, an IOC member from Switzerland and the chairman of the IOC Coordination Commission overseeing Salt Lake City's preparations for 2002.

Reporters representing news organizations from around the world are asking whether the IOC would take the Olympics away from Salt Lake City if the allegations prove true.

The newly appointed chairman of the investigative committee, IOC Vice President Dick Pound of Canada, refused to rule out the possibility. "We're not going to make any conclusions without facts," Pound said.

He stopped short, though, of using the word "bribe" in describing the investigation. "There may or may not have been payments which benefited IOC members or their families during Salt Lake City's bid," Pound said.

Only one IOC member involved has been identified publicly, Rene Essomba from Cameroon, who died earlier this year. The program paid for his daughter's tuition and living expenses at American University in Washington, D.C.

SLOC has said the program was intended to pay for tuition, training and living expenses in the United States for deserving young people, mostly in African countries.

Even the investigative effort was stepped up Friday. Just a day earlier, the IOC announced that IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch had sent the matter to the Juridical Commission.

But the IOC Executive Board, which is meeting here through Sunday, decided by midday Friday that the commission couldn't act fast enough and took over the investigation.

Samaranch, Hodler and IOC Vice President Anita DeFrantz of the United States then met with Joklik and SLOC attorney Kelly Flint to talk about how the inquiry would proceed.

They settled on a special investigative committee. The members are all IOC vice presidents -- Keba Mbaye of Senegal, Jacques Rogge of Belgium and Thomas Bach of Germany.

Neither Rogge nor Bach had any comment about the committee's first meeting Friday, other than to say they would meet again on the matter Saturday morning.

SLOC has submitted documentation to the IOC about the financial assistance program. "It wasn't a list of names or anything," Joklik said. "It's just a little more detail than we have been talking about."

Back home, the organizing committee and the U.S. Olympic Committee are working to calm sponsors of the 2002 Winter Games and the U.S. Olympic teams, according to USOC Deputy Secretary General John Krimsky.

"Clearly, the sponsors are not going to be happy with what they're hearing," Krimsky said.

Two unnamed corporations have already contacted him with questions, he said.

In response, Krimsky said sponsor briefings are being conducted with the help of the SLOC vice president of public communications, Shelley Thomas. The USOC and the organizing committee are selling sponsorships together.

Krimsky said he will propose the USOC review its own financial assistance program, which provided some $600,000 to national Olympic committees in poor countries over a four-year budget period.

Krimsky said there is no chance Salt Lake City will lose the 2002 Games because of the scandal. "That is not even a remote possibility," Krimsky said.