SOCOG rejects Payne's criticism
Posted: Wednesday February 17, 1999 12:12 PM
SYDNEY, Australia (AP) -- Sydney Olympic organizing president
Michael Knight has rejected criticism of its budget structure by
the International Olympic Committee's marketing director Michael
Payne.
Knight said the IOC had signed off on the controversial deal
which handed a risk-free A$100 million (US$65
million) to the Australian Olympic Committee in exchange for its
right to veto SOCOG board decisions.
The deal has been criticized in Australia because the AOC will
receive the money off the top from television rights, regardless of
the financial success of the games.
With Sydney about A$200 million (US$130
million) short of its target for sponsorship revenues, Payne
suggested the controversial profit deal should be reviewed.
"It would seem the first place to start is to look at the whole
profit deal, which we thought was a bad idea in the first place,"
Payne told The Associated Press. "We would never do a deal of this
nature again. Never in a million years."
Knight, who is also the New South Wales state Olympics Minister,
said the deal was done and Payne should accept that.
"They had to sign the deal, they were party to it," Knight
said Wednesday.
"I would have thought that Michael Payne would have had enough
on his plate with IOC problems without giving Sydney gratuitous
advice.
"I wasn't impressed with his last piece of advice to us --
suggesting the IOC might bring its own Mercedes Benz cars to Sydney
when it was suggested that IOC people might be asked to give up
their limousines and travel by bus to Homebush."
In a deal between Knight, as Olympics Minister, and AOC
president John Coates, the AOC agreed to give up its veto power
over key decisions in exchange for the guaranteed A$100 million (US$65 million).
Although the deal was public from the start, it came under
closer scrutiny this month following a current affairs program
which explored the SOCOG hierarchy.
The AOC is considered the big winner in the deal, with SOCOG
struggling to reach its budget targets.
"I thought [Coates] has been looking after the Australian
Olympic Committee very well and it appears the government's
interests have not been as well looked after by the government,"
said state auditor-general Tony Harris last week.
Coates was asked if he should guarantee the forecast A$30 million profit for taxpayers. "You want me to guarantee it
against the 100 million do you? No way," he told the current
affairs program.
"This is the legacy for Australian Olympic sport. This is the
one chance to set the AOC up and continue to fund the athletes in
our sports at the level we are now doing."
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