Time winding down
Expulsion vote nears in Salt Lake bribery scandal
Posted: Tuesday March 16, 1999 07:01 PM
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Phil Coles arrived for the assembly and said he would stay on the IOC despite growing calls in Australia for his resignation. AP |
LAUSANNE, Switzerland (AP) -- The IOC's internal investigation of corruption reviewed new documents Tuesday as the committee prepared for a historic vote to decide whether to uphold the expulsion of six members in the Salt Lake bribery scandal.
The inquiry headed by vice president Dick Pound met after receiving "some letters and documents" overnight, executive board member Kevan Gosper said.
Gosper, who is not among the five members on the Pound commission, said he did not know what the new evidence contained or who it related to.
Reports in The New York Times and The Chicago Tribune Tuesday said the commission might be getting ready to upgrade the punishment for executive board member Kim Un-yong from a stern warning to expulsion.
But Gosper said he had no information that another member was about to be ousted.
"Status quo. Those six," he said, referring to the members who will make their cases and await their fate before an emergency general assembly on Wednesday.
Gosper also said he was surprised by reports that IOC president Juan Antonio Samaranch had told friends he feared that members of his staff were trying to force him from his job.
"The executive board's preoccupation is to get through this week in support of the president and start the program that will reestablish our reputation," he said.
The executive board heard from the new boss of the Salt Lake Organizing Committee, Mitt Romney.
Gosper said Romney, brought in to steady the scandal-plagued Utah committee and finalize preparations for the games, expressed confidence in his staff and cited renewed support from Utah residents.
"We were very pleased to meet him," Gosper said. "He was very open in his comments on the past, the present and where he was taking the games."
Also appearing before the board were the organizers of last year's Winter Games in Nagano. They presented a final report that contained a $43 million surplus, to be used to fund Olympic winter sports in Japan.
Kim's case had been left open by Pound last week when the latest recommendations were released. Pound said his commission needed more information to know if Kim was aware that a $70,000 telecommunications job for his son in Utah was underwritten by Salt Lake Olympic bidders.
Kim has denied any wrongdoing. Pound said at the time that he suspected such evidence existed. He was in an executive board meeting and unavailable for comment.
Another leading member who received a stern warning, Australian Phil Coles, arrived for the assembly and said he would stay on the IOC despite growing calls at home for his resignation.
"No way, mate," a weary Coles said after the long air trip from Sydney.
Samaranch also has been the target of calls for his resignation, and he, too, has been adamant that he will finish his term in 2001.
But now there are signs he fears for his job.
Samaranch suspects there is an in-house campaign to force him out of office, according to Olympic sources with firsthand knowledge of the IOC leader's concerns.
They said Samaranch, facing a crucial confidence vote this week, has told close associates in recent days that "there is someone in the house" working against him.
Samaranch fears that the current corruption crisis gives these forces an opening to unseat him and install a new leadership, sad the sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
One source said this was the first time Samaranch has deviated from his belief that "the house was totally with him and there was no plot."
The house refers to Chateau de Vidy, the IOC's administrative headquarters on the shores of Lake Geneva.
Samaranch did not identify who or how many might be involved in the suspected campaign, the sources said.
The assembly will open with an address by Samaranch and include a vote of confidence on the president "somewhat early in the proceedings," Gosper said.
Then the six members expelled will present their cases one by one in 20-minute sessions. The 91 members of the assembly will decide each case individually, Gosper said.
One of those expelled, Jean-Claude Ganga of the Congo Republic, said he would use a letter from his doctor and some old credit card receipts for draperies to try to rejoin the IOC.
Ganga, singled out for "special mention" in an ethics panel report on Salt Lake City's million-dollar bribery scheme to win the 2002 Winter Games, said Monday he would fight allegations that he received nearly $270,000 in improper inducements, by far the most of any member.
Ganga said at a news conference that the list of freebies stacked against him was a sham, and described the investigation as part of a "plot against the Third World" and "a decision to exclude Africa from the center of decision making in world sports."
Three of the six members expelled were from African countries, with the others from Latin America and Samoa.
Ganga also said he was being punished for leading the African boycott of the 1976 Montreal Games, and that the whole investigation revolved around efforts to pick Samaranch's successor. He said the investigators had "killed" Kim because the South Korean was interested in the presidency.
Copyright 2003 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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