Atlanta Olympic officials deny bribery charges
Posted: Saturday December 12, 1998 06:32 PM
ATLANTA (AP) -- Olympic organizers and state officials Saturday angrily denied charges that International Olympic Committee members were bribed during the city's bid for the 1996 Games.
Earlier Saturday in Switzerland, Marc Hodler, a senior member of the IOC Committee executive board, told reporters that organizers in Atlanta and other host cities paid for the votes of IOC members during the bidding process.
The 80-year-old Swiss lawyer said agents work on the behalf of IOC members seeking the best possible deal. Hodler charged that payments were sometimes made in the form of college scholarships to relatives of IOC members.
"No payments, direct or indirect," said Billy Payne, who led Atlanta's bid for the 1996 Games and was chief of the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games. "No scholarships, direct or indirect.
"I have never heard of that and will state positively, unequivocally, Atlanta did not do that."
Hodler said other organizing committees, including Salt Lake City, also bribed IOC members.
In his 1996 book, "The New Lords of the Rings," British journalist Andrew Jennings charged that ACOG paid the tuition for the stepson of a powerful Russian Olympic official.
Andrei Smirnov, the stepson of then-IOC executive committee member Vitaly Smirnov, enrolled at the University of Georgia in 1991, a year after Atlanta won the Games.
Saturday, Payne -- who played football at the university -- admitted working on the younger Smirnov's behalf.
"We knew him, and we knew his father and ... Vitaly had become a good friend," Payne said. "We said 'call this person and call that person.' We gave him a name at a Ramada Inn, where he got a
job cleaning toilets.
"We helped him as we would a son of any friend."
The Salt Lake Olympic Committee has recently acknowledged it set up a college scholarship fund for the children of some Olympic officials, including IOC members.
Under Olympic rules, bidding cities can give gifts no larger than $150 to IOC members.
From 1991 to 1995, SLOC -- under the direction of then-president Thomas Welch -- spent nearly $400,000 on scholarships to 13 individuals -- six of them relatives of IOC members, mostly from Africa.
Hodler said the same thing went on to secure the Atlanta bid. When the city won the Games in 1990, it was considered an upset over Athens, Greece, site of the first Olympics.
Dean H. Propst, who was the chancellor of the state university system at the time, said Georgia schools had no involvement in a scholarship-for-votes deal.
"Anything like that would have to have been approved by the Board of Regents," Propst said. "I think I would have known about it."
Governer Zell Miller had not heard of any bribes being given to IOC members for their votes, a spokeswoman said.
Andrew Young, ex-Atlanta mayor and former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, was given credit for helping Atlanta win the games by persuading African IOC members to vote for the city. Young was traveling Saturday and did not return several phone calls.
Current Atlanta Mayor Bill Campbell was not involved in the bid process. His spokesman, Nick Gold, said city officials did lobby IOC members during the bidding process, but without breaking any rules.
"In no way were there any bribes offered."
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