MONEY GAMES : Samaranch’s Legacy Will Be Greening of the Olympics

If French baron Pierre de Coubertin was the man whose inspiration became the Modern Olympics, Juan Antonio Samaranch of Spain is the man who introduced to the world the Thoroughly Modern Olympics.

For his efforts, de Coubertin’s heart was buried in Olympia, Greece. The same honor might have been accorded to a later International Olympic Committee president, Avery Brundage of the United States. Alas, no heart could be found upon his passing.

Samaranch, 69, is still very much a part of this life, although the comments directed his way in Puerto Rico after he was recently reelected to a four-year term as IOC president sounded like eulogies.

“He is the most outstanding president since de Coubertin,” said Kevan Gosper, an IOC vice president from Australia.

“He has put the Olympic Games on the highest international footing, politically, financially, socially and in sports terms. We are fortunate he’s prepared to stand for another term.”

How appropriate, the cynics noted, that Samaranch was reelected in an IOC session held in a city named San Juan. But even the cynics have to admit that Samaranch is worthy of considerable praise after his first nine years in office.

Forgetting for a moment his diplomatic accomplishments in healing the wounds left by three successive Summer Olympic boycotts--by the Africans in 1976, the Americans and their allies in 1980 and the Soviets and their allies in 1984--Samaranch has brought the Olympic movement up to date.

That is no small achievement, considering that the IOC was stalled in the dark ages less than 20 years ago. For that, history will not look kindly upon Brundage, the president from 1952-72.

In fairness, it is necessary to point out that he was one of the IOC’s three exceptional presidents. Holding the Olympic movement together during the Cold War years was not easy. Before Samaranch’s reelection, Brundage and de Coubertin were the only presidents ever reelected by acclamation.

But when the world changed, Brundage did not. Ruling by autocracy, he remained true to de Coubertin’s turn-of-the-century principles, even when it was clear from de Coubertin’s writings that he favored flexibility to assure that the Olympic movement remained a thriving part of the modern world.

Samaranch has critics, particularly among the French, English and Soviets, who long for the days of de Coubertin. They rail against the IOC’s trend toward professionalism and commercialization.

Philippe Simonnot went so far in an essay in a French newspaper, Le Figaro, after the Seoul Games last year as to say that the Olympics had “begun a descent into neo-paganism.”

Sir William Rees-Mogg wrote in a London newspaper, the Independent, that the humane and humanistic elements have disappeared from the Olympics, replaced by competitions that are solely “financial and muscular.” The headline on the article read: “The Decline of the Olympics into Physical and Moral Squalor.”

If Samaranch felt compelled to defend himself, he no doubt would say that he has allowed the Olympic movement to become more democratic.

In a recent essay, Olympic historian John Lucas, a Penn State professor, wrote that Samaranch had searched for the true spirit of the movement, discovering “the deeper meaning of the de Coubertin philosophy” by opening the Olympic Games to the deserving poor athletes of the world.

That would not have been possible without tremendous financial resources. The son of a wealthy textile manufacturer, Samaranch is a real estate investor and bank executive who has run the IOC as a multinational corporation.

When he became president in 1980, the IOC had cash reserves of $230,000. Now the figure is $76.1 million. It had an annual budget of $2.2 million. Now it is $12.7 million. Much of that has been made possible by the sale of television rights to U.S. networks.

In 1980, U.S. networks paid $102.5 million for the Games in Lake Placid and Moscow. By 1992, U.S. networks will have paid $644 million for the Games in Albertville, France, and here in Barcelona.

The IOC has had to make concessions to the networks, considering their interests before selecting Olympic sites, allowing them to have input in the scheduling of events and even voting to move the Winter Games out of the same year as the Summer Olympics after 1992. Suggested by an ABC executive, that enables both Games to fit more comfortably into a network’s budget.

Americans are accustomed to television wagging the dog. People in other parts of the world are not. To them, Samaranch says: The more money the IOC makes from television, the more money it will have to spread around.

It is not widely known that the IOC keeps only 8% of the television proceeds for its operating costs. Most of the money goes to the local organizing committees. Another 8% goes to Olympic Solidarity, a fund that promotes sports in developing nations.

All national Olympic committees that join the Olympic Program, a sponsorship plan begun by Samaranch in 1985 and patterned after the Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee’s marketing strategy, also share in those profits. The program is expected to produce about $175 million between 1988 and 1992.

“These millions of dollars that are being funneled from the IOC to the Third World and developing countries strengthen them, Olympic-wise,” Lucas told the Associated Press.

“Therefore, Samaranch’s preoccupation with money--and he is hugely preoccupied with money--is justifiable from his point of view because it enlarges the Olympic movement to disenfranchised people who were never allowed to participate in the Olympics.”

Money also has contributed to the democratization of the IOC. Because it operates in the black, the IOC has begun to pay travel expenses for members attending commission meetings. As a result, it no longer is necessary for a person to be independently wealthy to belong to the IOC.

Samaranch also deserves credit for opening the IOC to women. There are now six among the 92 members, among them Anita DeFrantz of Los Angeles. And it was Samaranch who created the Athletes’ Commission, consisting of 15 current and former Olympians, including hurdler Edwin Moses of the United States, who meet periodically and pass on their suggestions to the IOC.

Democracy also was Samaranch’s theme in opening the Games to professionals. A diplomat who was Spain’s ambassador to the Soviet Union from 1977-80, he was less than diplomatic when he accused the Soviet Bloc of hypocrisy for supporting full-time athletes while blocking professionals from other countries from competing in the Olympics. He insisted that the best athletes from throughout the world should be involved.

Now that it has become clear that the eternal flame was not doused by the participation of Steffi Graf and Chris Evert at Seoul, there is hardly any opposition to professionals competing in the Olympics.

But Samaranch’s lasting legacy may be a unified Olympic movement. After boycotts at Montreal, Moscow and Los Angeles, 160 of 167 countries in the Olympic movement attended the 1988 Summer Olympics, including 28 that did not have diplomatic relations with the host country, South Korea.

Unlike Brundage and Lord Killanin of Ireland, Samaranch lives at Lausanne, Switzerland, the IOC headquarters. He receives no salary, but he is reimbursed for expenses.

And they are considerable, because he spends only about 40% of his time at Lausanne, jetting about the world to keep in contact with leaders in sports and government.

Idealists prefer to think that sports and politics do not mix, but Samaranch knows better. He attempts to head off potential conflicts before they affect the Olympics. He has traveled 2.5 million miles, visited 160 countries.

He said that he hopes to visit the seven other countries in the Olympic movement before his second term ends in 1993. The year before that, the Summer Olympics will be held in Barcelona, his hometown. He looks forward to that as the most glorious time of his presidency.

And after 1993? Will he again run for reelection?

“I don’t know what can happen in 1993, but I can tell you that to become president of the IOC is not easy,” he said. “To be reelected is not easy. But to be through at the right moment, it is not easy, either. I think the right moment for me will be 1993.”