'Going on for quite a while'
Diamonds, brothel visits, VCRs offered to IOC members
Posted: Tuesday January 19, 1999 03:45 PM
LONDON, England (AP) -- At least two IOC members accepted offers of
prostitutes from a bid committee trying to land the 1992 Olympic
Games for Amsterdam, a member of an Olympic promotional group said
Tuesday.
"I was there (in 1986) and saw it, IOC members being offered
women and two accepting," Prince Frederic von Saxe-Lauenberg, a
member of the Pierre de Coubertin International Committee, told The
Associated Press.
He said the two were African members, but declined to name them.
He said six other IOC members present in 1986 in Amsterdam -- on a
site inspection visit -- had declined the offer.
"Prostitutes were offered (in 1986) to several IOC members and
they took it for granted they would be offered," he said in a
telephone interview. "They ask if there was anything else you
could offer."
Von Saxe-Lauenberg also claimed that IOC members were given
video cassette recorders and their wives were offered diamond
broaches by the Amsterdam committee.
Roel Walraven, a member of Amsterdam's bid committee, admitted
that IOC members had been given VCRs. But he stopped there.
"I know nothing about visits to brothels or diamonds in hotel
rooms," he said. "But it was standard practice to pamper IOC
members."
Amsterdam lost the bid for the 1992 Games, which were awarded to
Barcelona. Prostitution is legal in parts of Amsterdam.
Allegations of sexual favors being offered to IOC members have
long been rumored, but British-born Von Saxe-Lauenberg is among the
first to speak out.
Von Saxe-Lauenberg said there was now "fertile ground" in the
wake of an investigation into charges that IOC members received
cash payments and lavish gifts from boosters of the 2002 Salt Lake
City Winter Olympics.
An ethics panel in Salt Lake City is also looking into
allegations that IOC members were provided with females escorts.
Von Saxe-Lauenberg said he'd traveled, often at his own expense,
to cities bidding for the Olympics and had seen "similar kinds of
things over and over."
"It's been going on for quite a while, since 1958 when Tokyo
offered Geisha girls to win the games in 1964. It's quite old," he
said.
He said he'd tried to speak out before but his words "had
fallen largely on deaf ears." He said he had also been cautious
because of the committee's ties to the IOC.
The Pierre de Coubertin committee is named for the founder of
the modern Olympic Games and "works on the adoption of principles
and ideas" related to the "Olympic spirit."
The committee describes itself as a non-governmental
"apolitical" body espousing the ideals of de Coubertin. Von
Saxe-Lauenberg said the committee gets 40,000 Swiss francs (US$29,000) a year in funding from the IOC.
"I have come forth because I believe these IOC members are
doing damage to the Olympic movement," Von Saxe-Lauenberg said.
"The actions of its members have gotten out of hand and they've
become monsters. They have overstepped the mark ... and they need
to be stopped, rooted out."
Von Saxe-Lauenberg, 45, speaking from Chester in northern
England, described himself as an "author, researcher, writer ... a
man about town" and a member since 1993 of the Pierre de Coubertin
committee. He said his title was a courtesy one inherited from his
uncle.
He said IOC members Ashwini Kumar of India and Jan Staubo of
Norway were offered sexual favors in the 1986 incident, but
declined.
Staubo, now 78, told Norway's largest newspaper, Verdens Gang,
that he did not recall the Amsterdam incident.
"But I have several times had such offers in connection with
visits to applicant cities," Staubo was quoted as saying. "I have
a very negative attitude toward that kind of thing."
In a related development, the Swedish newspaper Lanstidningen
said Tuesday that the former vice-mayor of Ostersund said she had
been mistaken for a prostitute by an unnamed, visiting IOC member.
"He thought I was part of the entertainment, if I do say so,
until I told him I was vice-mayor," Gun-Britt Maartensson told the
newspaper.
Von Saxe-Lauenberg, who praised Samaranch's 18-year tenure as
IOC head, also called for his resignation.
"He (Samaranch) has let them get out of hand, he should take
early retirement," Von Saxe-Lauenberg said. "The president of the
IOC is supposed to keep his members in line."
"But I have great respect for the man," he added. "He has
made the organization into what it is today, putting on the Games.
If it weren't for him, the IOC would be bankrupt."
Copyright 2003 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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