Atlanta officials: We didn't buy games
Posted: Monday December 14, 1998 08:54 PM
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ACOG president and chief executive officer Billy Payne denies assertions that ACOG provided nearly $400,000 in aid to 13 people, including six relatives of IOC members AP |
ATLANTA (AP) -- Despite assertions that Atlanta's bid for the
1996 Olympics was tainted, state and Olympic officials insist they
did not buy the votes of IOC members.
"No one ever approached me for payments or offering votes,"
said Charlie Battle, who was senior vice president of international
relations for the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games, on Monday. "No one at ACOG, to my knowledge, was approached. It never came up at any meetings I attended. There was never any mentioned of such demands."
The charges of payoffs were raised during the weekend by Swiss
Olympic executive Marc Hodler, who cited irregularities in the
selections of Atlanta; Nagano, Japan; Sydney, Australia; and Salt
Lake City.
Hodler, a senior IOC executive board member, said some IOC
members seek to profit from their power to decide where the games
will be held.
The IOC has begun investigating a scholarship fund instituted by
organizers of the 2002 Salt Lake City Games. The fund provided
nearly $400,000 in aid to 13 people, including six relatives of IOC
members.
Hodler has described that as a "bribe," and when asked whether
Atlanta's victory in the vote for the games was clean, he replied,
"Certainly not."
Billy Payne, ACOG president and chief executive officer, said no
scholarships -- "direct or otherwise" -- were offered to IOC
relatives.
In the 1996 book "The New Lords of the Rings," British
journalist Andrew Jennings accused ACOG of paying tuition for the
stepson of a Russian Olympic official.
Payne acknowledged helping Andrey Petelin, the stepson of
then-IOC executive committee member Vitaly Smirnov, enroll at the
University of Georgia.
"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,"
Payne said.
Petelin was enrolled at the university from 1992 through 1994,
but he received no scholarship money from the school or the
University of Georgia Foundation, said Tom Landrum, chief of staff
to university president Michael Adams.
Landrum said school officials did not know the Russian student
was related to an Olympic official until they saw news reports of
the bribery allegations.
Stephen Portch, the university system chancellor, said he placed
calls to the University of Georgia, Georgia Tech and Georgia State
on Monday to ask about any scholarships for relatives of Olympic
officials.
"I have found nothing to indicate anyone in the universities or
in the related organizations of universities were in any way
involved in scholarships related to the Olympic bid," Portch said.
Outgoing Gov. Zell Miller said the charges "hit me right out of
the blue. I've never heard of anything like this. If it is true, it
should be remedied. If it isn't true, that cloud should be removed
from everybody that's been involved in the Olympics over the last
several years."
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