No Olympic Rebates, USOC Says : Committee Vetoes $7-Million Foreign Reimbursements

The U.S. Olympic Committee executive board rejected without dissent Sunday a proposal to use $7 million in surplus Los Angeles Olympic funds to reimburse foreign Olympic committees for their housing costs during the 1984 Summer Games.

Since the USOC’s approval was required, the decision meant that the cash rebates, which were requested by International Olympic Committee President Juan Antonio Samaranch and supported by Los Angeles Olympic President Peter V. Ueberroth, are a dead letter.

Neither could be reached for comment Sunday.

In the debate that preceded the unanimous vote, USOC board members expressed fear that the cash reimbursements would amount to a giveaway benefiting the foreign governments that control most Olympic committees and that little, if any, of the money would assist the athletes of those countries.

Friendship Program

In place of the reimbursements, the USOC board members suggested that the Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee join the USOC and national sports federations in a USOC-administered “friendship” program of exchanges and assistance for both U.S. and foreign athletes and coaches.

According to this proposal, $7 million would be taken off the top of the Los Angeles surplus, which has now grown to at least $225 million, for the “friendship” program.

Los Angeles Olympic Board Chairman Paul Ziffren, contacted at his home in Malibu, said the LAOOC board will consider the USOC proposal when it meets this afternoon at the Beverly Hilton in Los Angeles. He declined to comment on its merits.

But another Los Angeles board member, who asked not to be identified, said he thought it was extremely unlikely that the LAOOC would agree to contribute any of Southern California’s share of the surplus to such a fund.

Doubts Expressed

This board member said it was a “noble idea” for the USOC to create such a program out of its 40% share of the Olympic surplus. But he said he doubted that Los Angeles would give up any of its own 40% share for that purpose. That share is destined for a Southern California foundation to aid youth sports in the Los Angeles area.

Before the USOC board voted on the matter, Robert J. Kane, a former USOC president who was the organization’s liaison with the LAOOC, warned the members that their new proposal “won’t fly in Los Angeles.”

“I know the Los Angeles people far better than most of you do,” he said, “and I can tell you they won’t go for this.”

The LAOOC board of directors tentatively voted to use the $7 million for reimbursements to foreign committees at a meeting in Los Angeles on Dec. 19., after an impassioned appeal by Ueberroth.

Ueberroth and Samaranch had supported the direct cash rebates on grounds that many foreign Olympic committees had spent additional funds because they sent larger teams to the Games to help Los Angeles reduce the effects of the Soviet boycott. Therefore, they reasoned, the foreign committees should share in the huge surplus at least in a minor way, by being repaid for their Olympic Village costs.

Ueberroth had suggested that the USOC would be “greedy” if it did not go along with the reimbursement idea.

Both the new USOC president, John B. Kelly Jr., and its retiring executive director, F. Don Miller, had agreed to support the reimbursements at the December meeting of the LAOOC executive board. But Sunday neither made any effort to dissuade the USOC board from rejecting the proposal.

No Major Backing

It quickly became apparent in the debate that there was no sentiment in the 85-member board for the cash reimbursements.

Gene Edwards, an official of the National Soccer Federation, said he had asked Harry L. Usher, former No. 2 man at the LAOOC, to specify what countries would get the money.

He said Usher had informed him that the two biggest recipients would be West Germany, which would get $558,000, and Canada, which would get $458,000. In other words, Edwards suggested, the proposal would reimburse some of the world’s richest countries for their Olympic costs, while a friendship fund administered by the USOC would presumably aid many athletes in poor countries.

Edwards said that Usher had declined to give a further listing of potential recipients.

Bill Wall, executive director of the National Basketball Federation, complained that “very few” of the foreign Olympic committees participating in the Los Angeles Games had even bothered “to say thank you” to the Games’ organizers.

Questions Proposal

“America made this money our own way,” Wall said. “Why should we share it? Nobody’s ever paid for us to go anywhere.”

John Mosher, who heads a U.S. Information Agency program to aid foreign sports groups, said he thought direct cash reimbursements would be “superficial” and preferred an aid program controlled by the USOC.

Henry Marsh, an Olympic steeplechase runner who is the head of the USOC’s Athletes Advisory Council, said the friendship fund would represent a good compromise.

But doubts were immediately expressed that such a fund would get off the ground, and the USOC board’s motion supporting it contained a clause requiring a review by lawyers to see if such a fund would be legal under the 1979 USOC-LAOOC contract. That contract designated 40% of the surplus for Southern California youth sports, 40% for the USOC and 20% for national sports federations.

In a related development, Miller said USOC representatives attending the LAOOC board meeting in Los Angeles today will try to get the Los Angeles leaders to set a firm date for giving the USOC its share of the surplus.

Ueberroth had said last September that the USOC would get $50 million promptly as a first installment. Up to now, it has received nothing, however.