Veto of Olympic Repayments Disappoints Ueberroth, Samaranch

Los Angeles Olympic President Peter V. Ueberroth and International Olympic Committee President Juan Antonio Samaranch expressed disappointment Monday at the U.S. Olympic Committee’s veto of their proposal to use $7 million in surplus Los Angeles Olympic funds to reimburse foreign Olympic committees for their housing costs at the 1984 Games.

Ueberroth, who is commissioner of baseball but continues to hold the title of LAOOC president, said from his New York office:

“I’m just disappointed. I wanted each country to be able to say it was our guest at the Games. They helped us so much in our time of crisis (with the Soviet boycott) that to refund their payments to us would be the right thing to do. . . . I still feel this is right. I feel it very strongly. But it’s up to the LAOOC and USOC boards.”

Ueberroth did not come to Los Angeles Monday for an LAOOC executive board meeting on the subject.

Samaranch, reached at his office in Lausanne, Switzerland, dismissed as unsatisfactory USOC’s proposed alternative of a “friendship” program of exchanges and assistance for U.S. and foreign athletes.

However, USOC officials said Monday that the LAOOC has agreed to study the “friendship” fund proposal. The decision to set up LAOOC and USOC committees to study the plan was made in a two-hour meeting between representatives of the two bodies on Monday, USOC officials said.

The IOC president also took exception to suggestions in the USOC debate Sunday that the reimbursements would have mainly constituted a giveaway to rich Olympic committees. One speaker had noted that $558,000 of the $7 million would have gone to West Germany and $458,000 to Canada.

‘Not Very Rich’

“I can assure you that the national Olympic committee in West Germany is not very rich,” Samaranch declared, “and that many others are not very rich.

“It’s very clear that the IOC wanted this money to go to the national Olympic committees. If the USOC thinks that’s wrong, well that’s up to them.”