IOC Seeks to Close Bribery Crisis

It all began a year ago with the “B” word.

Marc Hodler, a senior executive board member of the International Olympic Committee, was the first official to use “bribe” to describe the methods used by Salt Lake City to win the vote for the 2002 Winter Games.

In November 1998, a Salt Lake television station obtained a leaked document disclosing that the city’s Olympic bid team had set up a scholarship fund for the relatives of IOC members.

The story remained mainly a local controversy until two weeks later, when Hodler--the IOC official with oversight over the Salt Lake Games--raised the stakes by declaring that the college tuition payments amounted to bribes.

But Hodler was just getting warmed up.

On Dec. 12, 1998, he unleashed a series of corruption allegations that shook the IOC to its foundations, accelerated the biggest crisis in its 105-year history and set the stage for a massive Olympic shakeup.

In a fitting piece of symmetry, the scandal comes full circle exactly a year later when the IOC votes Dec. 11-12 on a package of sweeping reforms it hopes will close the crisis for good.

“In every crisis, you can find a positive side,” IOC president Juan Antonio Samaranch told The Associated Press. “We are using this positive side to make some important changes that would have been impossible without this crisis. If the reforms are adopted, maybe we can say the problem is over.”

What had shaped up as a fairly routine IOC board meeting last December turned into one of the most tumultuous moments in the annals of Olympic politics.

The marble lobby of the IOC’s headquarters was the setting for extraordinary scenes as Hodler, encircled by reporters, let loose with his allegations.

At one point, the 80-year-old Swiss lawyer took over a podium reserved for a sponsorship news conference and delivered his own impromptu briefing, while Samaranch and other officials watched in stunned silence.

Among Hodler’s allegations:

* Vote buying was common in the selection of Olympic host cities, including the successful bids of Atlanta, Nagano, Sydney and Salt Lake.

* Five to 7 percent of IOC members were open to bribes.

* Four agents, including one IOC member, bought and sold blocs of votes for up to $1 million.

* Agents demanded payment of between $3 million and $5 million from cities winning the bid.

So what came of his outburst?

Hodler brought the issue of Olympic corruption to global attention and became known as the whistle-blower who pushed the IOC to clean up its act.

Yet, his principal allegations--that agents buy and sell votes for big sums of money -- were never confirmed, or even seriously addressed.

“We were very surprised that he was saying all these things to the press,” said IOC vice president Dick Pound, who led an internal inquiry into the Salt Lake scandal. “We invited him to come speak to the commission. We ended up being more surprised when we asked him for details, and he said he had no details, it was all hearsay.”

In fact, the IOC had already announced an investigation into the Salt Lake scholarship fund before Hodler spoke out. At that stage, no one could have predicted the head-spinning chain of events which followed:

* A Salt Lake ethics report found the bid committee showered more than $1.2 million in cash, scholarships, travel, gifts, medical care and other inducements on IOC members and their families.

* Six IOC members were expelled, four resigned and 10 received various degrees of warnings.

* The two top officials of Salt Lake’s organizing committee, Frank Joklik and Dave Johnson, resigned. Mitt Romney, a former venture capitalist, took over as the new organizing chief.

* A top U.S. Olympic Committee official, Alfredo La Mont, was forced out.

* The Justice Department and FBI opened a criminal investigation that has resulted in charges against a Utah businessman and the son of a powerful South Korean IOC official. The investigation is continuing and further charges are expected.

* The scandal spread to Sydney, Nagano, Atlanta and other cities, where further bidding excesses were exposed.

* Congress held two hearings on Olympic bid abuses and threatened to impose sanctions on the IOC.

While the scandal initially centered on the role of Salt Lake bid officials, the IOC quickly came under scrutiny. Critics accused the organization of fostering a corrupt bidding process and doing nothing to stop the abuses.

The insular organization, whose workings were little understood by the outside world, suddenly found itself besieged. Its image, credibility and authority were damaged as the crisis spun out of control.

At the height of the scandal, Pound said the IOC was suffering “death by a thousand cuts.”

“It’s been a very difficult year,” Pound said in an interview this week. “The organization and its leadership were under constant and heavy attack, partly justified and partly unjustified. We’ve had to respond to those concerns.”

The IOC cleaned house by kicking out members accused of wrongdoing. It set up an ethics commission to enforce a new code of conduct. It opened its financial books and made its sessions open to the media. And, finally, it embarked on a process to reform its structure and rules.

“We have demonstrated beyond any question that we are bound and determined to reform the organization,” Pound said. “We have accomplished things that might have taken years to accomplish otherwise.”

In Salt Lake City, meanwhile, Romney has put the 2002 Winter Games back on track, regaining the confidence of the public and sponsors, trimming the budget and distancing his committee from the travails of the IOC.

It’s been an especially turbulent year for Samaranch, a 79-year-old Spaniard who became the lightning rod for anti-IOC sentiment and faced incessant calls for his resignation from critics around the world.

Samaranch refused to quit, and IOC members rallied around him, giving him an overwhelming vote of confidence (86-2) in March.

Samaranch appointed a task force -- including outside delegates such as Henry Kissinger and former U.N. Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali -- to draw up a series of IOC reforms.

Samaranch will submit the package of 50 proposals to the full IOC for approval next weekend.

The measures include: appointment of 15 active athletes to the IOC; creation of a nomination and screening process for IOC membership; lowering of the age limit from 80 to 70; introduction of a renewable, eight-year term of office for members; a term limit for the IOC president; and a procedure requiring prospective bid cities to meet certain minimum standards.

Samaranch is to appear before a House subcommittee on Dec. 15, just three days after the Lausanne meeting, to brief lawmakers on the reforms. Congressional leaders, who have been sharply critical of the IOC, say they will carry out legislation to punish the organization if major reforms aren’t enacted.

“The crisis that we have experienced this year has been far more serious than we could have imagined,” Samaranch wrote in a letter to IOC members obtained by the AP. “We must do all we can to end this as soon as possible. ...

In the interview, Samaranch said even if the image of the IOC has suffered, the prestige of the games themselves is higher than ever, with a record 12 cities interested in the 2008 Summer Olympics.

And Hodler?

In June, the IOC awarded the 2006 Winter Games to Turin, Italy, in what was widely seen as a backlash against Hodler, who supported the longtime front-runner of Sion, Switzerland.

But Hodler continues to speak his mind. In recent Swiss newspaper interviews, he said he is not convinced that corruption has been eliminated from the IOC.

“Even if the reforms are adopted,” he said. “I can’t guarantee that some members won’t still try to sell their votes. But there will be fewer risks.”