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Green games

Australian bid member offered money to IOC members to secure votes

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Posted: Saturday January 23, 1999 11:54 AM

Coates: " What we were doing was no different to what governments do with aid" UK/Allsport

SYDNEY, Australia (AP) -- John Coates was already worried about Sydney's chances to win the bid for the 2000 Summer Olympics when he flew to Africa, but when he landed in Mali, he found out Australia was in deep trouble.

Coates, the president of the Australian Olympic Committee, had seen Melbourne and Brisbane lose prior bids because they didn't woo International Olympic Committee delegates aggressively enough -- especially the Africans.

"I was in Mali, and we had met at the airport and driven into the capital, and it was explained to me that the Chinese government is paying for this new highway.

"Australia has some foreign aid, but not in that realm," he said.

He realized then, in 1993, that Sydney might well lose, Coates told reporters Saturday, in a lengthy explanation of how to win an Olympic bid against stiff competition from cities such as Beijing or Manchester, England.

He explained how Sydney's "clean, green" Olympics bid, under pressure from developing-country IOC delegates and with the big money at stake, became not so clean and a "cross my palm with green" campaign.

At the time, China, which was lobbying for the Games to be held in Beijing, was offering Cameroon "variations to loan repayments," had built an addition to a hospital and offered other aid, Coates said.

"Where ever we went, China, in many cases, had been before. I was also aware that Bob Scott, who was heading up the Manchester bid, had had a run-through," Coates said.

Coates said former Atlanta mayor Andrew Young had toured Africa dispensing U.S. foreign aid commitments -- in exchange for support for Atlanta's bid for the 1996 Summer Olympics.

"It was clear that others were offering more," he added. "What we were doing was no different to what governments do with aid."

Coates called the Sydney bid committee to tell it to get serious if it wanted to host the 2000 Olympics.

"I drafted the original strategies, and early on had identified that we had to do something in Africa. I came to grips with that because I knew that's how Atlanta had achieved it, so I didn't feel uncomfortable."

"I hope the Australian public understands from this that there are developing countries and developing-nation Olympic committees who, under this system, are leveraging their IOC member's vote. I think that should be changed, but that is a process we went into with our eyes wide open."

Coates and the Sydney bid committee had already agreed to host two athletes from 11 African countries for three months for training at the Australian Institute of Sports.

Now they decided to extend the offer for each year up to 2000 if Sydney won the Games -- at a cost of some 2 million Australian dollars (US$1.3 million).

"What we did was within the guidelines, we did it just as China did it through their government aid and consulates and just as Manchester did it through the Millennium Foundation (fund), we did it through cooperation agreements with the Australian Olympic Committee," he said.

But as the crucial decision approached in September 1993, Sydney appeared to be losing ground to Beijing. Berlin and Manchester already had been knocked out of the running.

"I saw our votes being eaten away," Coates recalled.

He offered the Kenyan and Ugandan delegates free lodging in London at the Dorchester, one of the city's most expensive hotels, in order to meet with them privately before the vote in Monte Carlo -- away from Beijing's lobbyists.

"It was just a matter of trying to get them to lunches, dinners, whatever, and talk to them, and it was just very, very competitive. That was the political game we were playing," Coates said.

The hotel room offer was declined, but Coates did not give up.

At a dinner in Monte Carlo on Sept. 22, 1993, the night before the final vote, Coates decided not to sit at the head table in order to dine with crucial IOC members Charles Mukora of Kenya and Maj. Gen. Francis Nyangweso of Uganda.

"I was very concerned that night before the vote," Coates said.

"I just felt an unease, I knew these guys and I just didn't think the next day I was going to be able to count on them to vote for Sydney."

So, on the spot, he offered then US$35,000 each for their respective National Olympic Committees -- if Sydney won the bid.

The next day, Sydney beat Beijing for the right to host the 2000 Summer Olympics by two votes, 45-43 in a secret ballot.

Coates says there is no way of knowing whether Kenya and Uganda tipped the balance for Sydney: "I'll die not knowing if those two voted for us."

But Sydney had played the money marathon right and prevailed.

"We didn't win it on the beauty of the city and the sporting facilities we had to offer, and we were never going to," Coates said. "I wasn't going to die wondering why we didn't win."

 

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