Today, The IOC declared that the previous “secret payments” between the former president of the Tokyo 2020 Bidding Committee Tsunekazu Takeda and IOC member Lamine Diack are, in fact, legitimate.
The IOC claims that, “The payments mentioned in the media were a legitimate consultant’s fee….It followed a full and proper contract and the monies were fully audited.” Although the IOC maintains that the payments were for consulting fees, many have to question the legitimacy of these payments, as the IOC has a rocky history with bribing members. In 1998 the IOC was caught in a scandal in which members were being given lavish gifts in exchange for their vote.
The scandal began when the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) investigated a mysterious $4 million of sponsorship money that Japan had paid to Lamine Diack, alleged to have been for his vote for Tokyo’s bid in 2020. It was alleged that Turkey lost its bid because they did not pay “sponsorship monies” to the IOC.
The IOC soon responded to the original charges, asking WADA for its report transcripts, saying to the press “We have already asked the Independent Commission for the transcript so that we can better understand the context and the claims being made.” The Tokyo Olympic Organizing Committee insists that the Games were awarded to Tokyo on merit alone, and the Turkish Olympic Committee did not deny an exchange of monies, but said that one person’s vote did not alter where the Games would take place.
About a week ago an article from the Guardian claimed that the payment from the Tokyo Olympic bid team was made to a Black Tidings account in Singapore linked to the son of disgraced former world athletic chief Lamine Diack. Diack is now being investigated by the French Police on allegations of corruption.
Whatever Turkey was in mid 2013 it is surely not the same now. insert your choice of undesirables but it goes to show we cannot foresee 3 let alone 7 years into the future. Its neighbours Iraq & Syria are in hell on earth & Nagorno Karabach is reignited on its northern border.
If you think Turkey is not involved in any/all I have a private bridge to sell you .(with a garden on it ). Tokyo – whoosh that was a lucky pick.
The IOC bigwigs looked down their collective noses at Atlanta’s 1996 efforts. As the IOC heads into the mess that is Rio, they probably wish they could have something half as well organized as the ’96 games.
Gina’s right about future host city venues. If I were the IOC, I’d be looking for a country with many years of fiscal, economic, and political stability. That rules out most countries.
Australia would be out then because we have had 6 leaders in 9 years & each well & truly dumped either by the electorate or party. And these were in some of the most favourable economic conditions of the past 100 years.
Am I throwing in the Olympic towel? Yes. We all need to look at ourselves very very seriously & fix us up . There can still be worlds etc .Anyhow that’s what I think .
A lot of wishful thinking going on in this article
Isn’t it amazing the IOC runs the world’s greatest athletic event?
Pretty sure Pepper Brooks might have something to say about that..