IOC shelves conflict-of-interest rules

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- The IOC quickly discovered it's not ready for the first formal rules on conflicts of interest.

Still recovering from the Salt Lake City corruption scandal, the International Olympic Committee on Monday shelved rules adopted just two days before.

In a 45-minute exchange on the first day of the IOC general assembly, a dozen members said the rules would create headaches with investigations and paperwork, and needed more study before they took effect.

"My reaction is that it goes much farther than members would want to go," Britain's Craig Reedie said.

Dick Pound of Canada, who led the IOC investigation of the Salt Lake City scandal, said the rules were "a wonderful start" but contained "a built-in series of conflicts" for members who also represent sports federations and national Olympic committees.

One member questioned why the IOC, a group criticized internationally for taking advantage of any loophole, needed ethics rules at all.

"I'm disappointed that we have so little confidence in ourselves that we need an ethics commission to tell us how to act," New Zealand's Tay Wilson said.

Jacques Rogge, running his first assembly as IOC president, and ethics commission chairman Keba M'Baye agreed to withdraw the rules, adopted Saturday by the policy-making executive board.

Instead, Rogge told members to submit proposed changes to the ethics commission for a revised code, to be considered at a special meeting on reforms in Mexico City in November. He called a conflict-of-interest code a "logical progression" from recent IOC rules changes.

The IOC has long had informal rules against conflicts of interest, but they were never on the books.

The new rules would have required all IOC members and staff, along with counterparts in most other Olympic agencies, to file lists with the ethics commission of potential conflicts of interest.

Members found to have conflicts of interest they did not reveal would have faced penalties ranging from reprimand to suspension.

The quick reversal forced by delegate complaints was unusual for the IOC. Rather than a rebellion, officials said the case illustrated Rogge's desire to open up the committee and refrain from the autocratic style of his predecessor, Juan Antonio Samaranch.

"This is an interactive session," director general Francois Carrard said. "It's a new presidency, a new administration. I think it is a very good thing for the IOC."

Members also discussed how to keep the Olympics filled with sports that people want to watch, while trying to trim the size of the games at the same time.

Franco Carraro, an Italian who chairs the commission that recommends changes in the Olympic schedule, said the goal was to hold the Summer Games to 300 medal events and 10,000 athletes. The Winter Games, with fewer events, would be more flexible.

But Carraro also said that as the IOC looks at the program for the 2008 Games in Beijing, it wants to make sure all events on the schedule are "attractive sports that add to the prestige of the games."

 

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