Change ahead
Samaranch: Executive committee is set to ban site visits
Posted: Saturday January 16, 1999 12:34 PM
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Samaranch: "If we prove that we are determined to clean up, then the worst of the crisis will be over" AP |
LAUSANNE, Switzerland (AP) -- The International Olympic Committee might decide next week to ban member visits to cities bidding for the Games, its president Juan Antonio Samaranch said in an interview published Saturday.
Samaranch said the IOC executive board, which meets Jan. 24, had the power to impose the ban without awaiting approval from a special assembly of all 115 members, which will convene in March.
The VIP treatment lavished on IOC members during trips to cities competing to host the Games lies at the heart of the widening bribery and corruption scandal.
Samaranch told the French-language daily Le Temps that representatives of each of the cities competing for the 2006 Winter Olympics had been invited to appear at next weekend's executive board meeting in Lausanne.
"The decision will probably be to ban the visits," he was quoted as saying.
Samaranch reiterated that he thought a smaller committee -- and not the full IOC membership -- should be responsible for awarding the Games.
"In all big sports organizations, such as soccer, cycling, ski and track, it's the executive committee which decides on the site for championships," he said.
"The IOC has tried to change its voting system. But it's very difficult to convince members to give up their rights. We're now going to try again," he said.
"Everyone is awaiting the decisions of Jan. 24. If we prove then that we are determined to clean up, then the worst of the crisis will be over," he said.
Any changes in the system would be in place before the selection in June of the 2006 Winter Games site.
The Swiss city of Sion, Turin in Italy, Poland's Zakopane; Klagenfurt in Austria and the Finnish capital Helsinki are candidates.
Samarach on Thursday told The Associated Press that he wrote to 13 members implicated in its inquiry into cash payments, scholarships, free medical care and other favors accepted during the course of Salt Lake City's successful bid for the 2002 Olympics.
Nine risk expulsion and four face lesser sanctions, he said.
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