IOC chief blasts Helmick's criticism
Posted: Monday January 25, 1999 02:17 PM
| |
Samaranch: "[Helmick] was a man who had to resign because he was facing expulsion from the IOC."
AP |
LAUSANNE, Switzerland (AP) -- IOC president Juan Antonio Samaranch fired back at one of his most vocal critics Monday, saying former U.S. Olympic chief Robert Helmick had no business calling for his resignation.
A day after expelling six IOC members in the organization's biggest corruption scandal, Samaranch expressed disdain for the attacks against him by Helmick, a former IOC vice president and U.S. Olympic Committee president who resigned from both organizations in 1991 over conflict-of-interest allegations.
Helmick's resignation was the only one ever by an IOC member in an ethics scandal before the current case broke.
Helmick has repeatedly called for Samaranch to resign in connection with the ethics scandal stemming from Salt Lake City's selection as host of the 2002 Winter Games, saying he should take responsibility for the misconduct of members that occurred under his leadership.
"If the propositions [are] coming from Helmick, for me, they have not any kind of value," Samaranch said. "He was a man who had to resign because he was facing expulsion from the IOC."
Samaranch reiterated he has no plans to resign as long as he has the support of IOC members, who now number 106. He said "not a single" call for his resignation has come from within the organization. Only if he fails to win a vote of confidence at a special IOC general assembly March 17-18 will he resign, Samaranch said. That possibility is considered remote.
"I am not thinking of any kind of resignation," Samaranch said. "In these moments, the Olympic movement is in real danger."
The scandal, already the worst in Olympics history, appeared certain to spread as the IOC prepared to ask all bidders from the 1996 Games onward to disclose any improper activities on the part of either bid committee or IOC members. And in Japan, Nagano Mayor Tasuku Tsukada acknowledged that the city's successful bidders for the 1998 Winter Olympics provided IOC officials with all-expenses-paid trips to the ancient capital of Kyoto.
"At that time, we were the ones who were asking to be chosen," Tsukada said Monday. "It's rather difficult to turn down the requests from IOC members who wanted to tour Kyoto."
In Salt Lake, organizers said they were "deeply saddened" by the wrongdoing uncovered by the IOC inquiry.
"Some of these actions should not have taken place," said Robert Garff, chairman of the Salt Lake Organizing Committee.
A member from Sudan who was expelled on Sunday said $1,000-a-month payments from Salt Lake bidders to his son were education-aid loans that he intended to repay.
"We have explained this to the committee [IOC]," Gen. Zein el-Abdin Ahmed Abdel-Gadir told The Associated Press in Khartoum. "But this is an exceptional circumstance and, in such cases, we know the reaction would not be normal."
Another implicated member, Anton Geesink of the Netherlands, said official warning for his financial conduct was "absolutely unjustified." He blamed Dutch Olympic officials for his plight.
Geesink was cautioned because of a $5,000 payment made by the SLOC to the Friends of Anton Geesink Foundation, a nonprofit group that funds his work promoting Olympic ideals and his IOC efforts.
"I am not happy about it," Geesink told Dutch television on Monday. "I accept it, but it is absolutely unjustified."
Meanwhile, despite statements by Samaranch and other IOC leaders that the 2002 Winter Games would stay in Salt Lake, another former Olympic host city offered to step in if a replacement was needed.
Mayor Toni Neidlinger of Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, said his town would "immediately apply" if the games were withdrawn from Salt Lake. The German Alpine town was the site of the 1936 Winter Olympics and lost a race for the Winter Games in 1992.
And the IOC received some good news -- and a tax break -- when a Swiss Parliament commission voted 12-11 to exempt the committee from a 7.5 percent value-added tax that would have cost it about $217,000 a year.
Samaranch said that the six members who were "temporarily excluded" Sunday had effectively been expelled. If those members fight their ouster, they will need to seek reinstatement at the March session. He virtually ruled out the chance of any of the six members retaining their IOC seats.
"I cannot imagine this," he said. "The proposition to expel the members is very clear. All the documents will be in the hands of the members of the IOC."
Samaranch was referring to the IOC investigative report implicating 14 members with accepting cash payments, scholarships, medical services and other favors during the Salt Lake bid.
"This is the beginning, not the end of our work," Samaranch said Sunday. "I am certain that the Olympic movement will emerge from the crisis stronger than ever."
Samaranch apologized for the influence-peddling scandals and pledged to root out misconduct once and for all.
"It should not have happened," he said. "I am sorry. I hope the decisions we made today will demonstrate our resolve to never let this happen again."
Samaranch said the IOC would broaden its investigation to examine allegations of misconduct in other bids stretching from the games of 1996 to 2006. But he stressed the 2000 Summer Games would definitely proceed in Sydney and that Salt Lake would keep its games, despite the scandal that now encompasses both cities.
Australian Olympics chief John Coates disclosed last week that he offered $70,000 in inducements to two African IOC members the night before Sydney defeated Beijing by two votes in the 1993 election.
Coates said the offer was not a bribe, but part of an assistance program for African athletes.
Samaranch said he would send two top officials to Sydney to look into the controversy. But he said no formal investigation had been ordered.
Samaranch also announced the creation of an ethics commission, composed mainly of independent officials outside the IOC, to police the way the committee and its members do business. And the IOC recommended a radical change in the selection process for the 2006 Winter Games. Under the proposal, visits to bid cities by IOC members will be banned and the host will be selected this June by a 15-person body rather than the full assembly.
The procedure for future Olympic selections will be decided after the 2006 vote.
Samaranch urged the six ousted members to "accept their fate" and quit. But several have said they would fight, including African Olympics chief Jean-Claude Ganga of the Republic of Congo. The IOC report found that Ganga received more than $216,000 in direct payments, medical and travel expenses and "unusually generous" gifts and entertainment. That was nearly half the total payments -- $440,710 -- which the report says went to eight members.
The report did not include the payments made to the three members who resigned, two still under investigation and one who died. If those members are included, inquiry head Dick Pound said he believed the total is close to $800,000.
Members ousted were Gadir, Ganga, Agustin Arroyo of Ecuador, Lamine Keita of Mali, Charles Mukora of Kenya and Sergio Santander of Chile. In addition to Geesink's warning, Louis Guirandou-N'Diaye of the Ivory Coast, Kim Un-yong of South Korea and Vitaly Smirnov of Russia remained under investigation.
David Sibandze of Swaziland resigned Sunday. Finland's Pirjo Haeggman and Libya's Bashir Mohamed Attarabulsi resigned last week. The late Rene Essomba of Cameroon also was cited for some $100,000 in scholarship payments to his daughter.
The IOC is one of five bodies investigating the Salt Lake scandals. Other inquiries -- some potentially more damaging -- are being carried out by the Salt Lake ethics committee, the Justice Department and FBI, the U.S. Olympic Committee and the Utah attorney general.
Copyright 2003 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
| 
