‘Friendship’ Plan Will Be Studied by Olympic Leaders

Los Angeles Olympic leaders agreed Monday to study a U.S. Olympic Committee proposal that they contribute to a USOC-administered “friendship” program of exchanges and assistance for U.S. and foreign athletes and coaches.

Paul Ziffren, board chairman of the Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee, said both the LAOOC and the USOC have named three-man committees to examine the situation resulting from the USOC’s rejection Sunday of $7 million in direct cash reimbursements to foreign Olympic committees for their housing costs at the 1984 Games.

Ziffren said it is hoped that some arrangement can be made in time for the annual meeting of the International Olympic Committee in East Berlin next June.

Fee for Usher Approved

In other actions taken at an LAOOC board meeting Monday:

- It was agreed, after lengthy discussion and three votes, that LAOOC General Manager Harry L. Usher, who recently took over as commissioner of the United States Football League, will continue for the time being to be paid a $7,500-a-month consultant’s fee by the LAOOC.

- G. Edward Smith, former director of Olympic ticketing, was formally named chief operating officer of the LAOOC with the task of closing out its operations. In addition to Usher, LAOOC President Peter V. Ueberroth will continue to be consulted on committee affairs, but unlike Usher, Ueberroth will not be paid a fee.

- The U.S. Olympic Committee was granted an immediate $50-million installment on its 40% share of the $225- to $250-million Los Angeles Olympic surplus. The rest of its money will be paid in a few months, when the LAOOC’s affairs are mostly wound up.

As the LAOOC board met, Ueberroth and IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch both reacted with disappointment to the USOC’s veto of the cash reimbursements to foreign Olympic committees.

Ueberroth, who is now commissioner of baseball and did not attend Monday’s meeting, 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.”

Samaranch, reached at his office in Lausanne, Switzerland, said he did not feel the “friendship” fund idea was nearly so satisfactory as the reimbursements. And he disputed suggestions made in the USOC debate Sunday that such reimbursements would have constituted a giveaway to rich Olympic committees, remarking that many of the foreign committees are not rich at all.

But Ziffren Monday night said that the reimbursement idea is dead and the study to be made will focus on the friendship fund proposal.