Greasing the wheels
Report: Nagano committee spent $21,905 per IOC member
Posted: Sunday January 17, 1999 03:15 PM
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In Japan, lavish gifts and expensive wining and dining have long been an established way of doing business Gary M. Prior/Allsport |
TOKYO, Japan (AP) -- A committee bidding for the 1998 Nagano Winter
Olympics spent an average of $21,905 on 62 visiting members of
the International Olympic Committee.
The weekend report by the nationwide Mainichi newspaper is the
first that begins to detail long-rumored payments by Japanese
officials to land the Games.
It also comes in the wake of admissions last week by a senior
official of the Nagano bid committee that accounting records had
been destroyed.
The Mainichi newspaper reported the Nagano bid committee spent
an estimated 2.5 million yen (US$21,905) per visitng IOC member
as part of its "negotiation fees," citing committee documents and
unnamed former officials.
Eight officials suspected of involvement with the Salt Lake City
bribery scandal were among the dozens of IOC members treated to
such freebies as first class airfare to Japan, all expense paid
stays at hot spring resorts, and helicopter tours, the paper said
in a report published Saturday.
But Sumikazu Yamaguchi, vice secretary general of the Nagano bid
committee, denied the reported level of spending on IOC
delegations.
No more than 500,000 yen (US$4,381) was spent on each IOC
member -- not including international airfares -- as part of a total
bid promotion budget of 1.1 billion yen (US$9.6 million), he said
late Sunday.
In another development, the Lausanne, Switzerland, newspaper Le
Matin reported that one-third of the $70 million cost of
Lausanne's Olympic museum was picked up by Japanese donors.
The paper, citing figures provided by the museum's management,
said Japanese contributors including Toyota, Hitachi and Japan
Airlines contributed $23 million to the cost. Spanish and
American contributors each added $6 million and South Korea
$5 million.
Nagano was awarded the Games in 1991 when construction of the
museum was under way. Spain hosted the 1992 Summer Olympics in
Barcelona and the United State was awarded the 1996 Summer Games in
Atlanta and the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City.
"It's not a case of corruption in this business. Just big
money. Very big money," the newspaper said.
The paper also noted Norway and Australia -- who have won recent
Olympic bids -- had not donated to the museum costs.
Last month, IOC executive Marc Hodler set off a bribery scandal
with accusations of vote-buying by Salt Lake bidders for the 2002
Winter Games.
IOC president Juan Antonio Samaranch has last week that nine IOC
members have been accused of "serious" offenses in connection
with the Salt Lake City bid and could be expelled. Four others are
being cited for minor violations.
In Japan, lavish gifts and expensive wining and dining have long
been an established way of doing business accusations of bribery
during Nagano's 1989-1991 bidding effort are nothing new.
None of the speculation has ever been proved, however. And it
may prove impossible to document.
The Asahi, another major Japanese newspaper, reported Friday
that Yamaguchi ordered the 90-volume accounting books be burned in
1992. He confirmed on Friday the records were destroyed shortly
after the bidding.
When a group of Nagano residents filed a lawsuit that year
demanding to know how their taxes were spent in winning the games,
Nagano bidders had said the records could not be found.
The question of who lost or destroyed the records was never
answered.
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