IOC to Purge Members Tied to Bribery Scandal

Having concluded its investigation of the Salt Lake City bribery scandal in less than a month, the International Olympic Committee has identified members believed to have taken bribes and will press for resignations, an IOC vice president said here Monday.

“The IOC investigation is finished,” said Anita DeFrantz, one of two U.S. members of the 115-person organization that sanctions Olympic competition. “And in fact the investigation has concluded to the extent that letters have been sent to members who have apparently abused their privileges.”

DeFrantz made her comments in a speech and in an interview.

Meanwhile, another IOC official raised doubts for the first time about Salt Lake City retaining the right to host the 2002 Winter Olympics.

Marc Hodler, the IOC senior member whose December allegations of Olympic corruption triggered the Salt Lake City investigation, said Monday in Bern, Switzerland, that he fears the Games might have to be moved or even canceled because of the difficulties organizers now face in filling a multimillion-dollar sponsorship gap in its $1.45-billion operating budget.

“With the reaction in Utah and Salt Lake City, it’s going to be difficult to find those $350 million,” Hodler told Associated Press in a phone interview. “This is my main concern.”

But John Krimsky, the U.S. Olympic Committee’s deputy secretary general and chief fund-raiser for the Salt Lake City Games, disputed Hodler’s comments, first placing the remaining sponsorship needed at $250 million, not $350 million, then insisting that all sponsorship goals would be met.

“We have raised 72% of the moneys necessary to put on the Games,” Krimsky said. “We had committed that all of the funding be at least contracted by the first of August 1999. When [the scandal] hit, it became obvious that it will take longer. . . . We’re now looking to the third quarter of 2000.”

A representative of one major U.S. corporation told The Times that Salt Lake City sponsorship in particular and Olympic sponsorship in general are facing tough days.

“I’m not going to pay money for sponsorship so that people won’t buy my product,” said the representative, who asked not to be identified.

One major Olympic sponsor, US West Communications, has delayed a scheduled $5-million payment to the Salt Lake Organizing Committee because of concern about the scandal.

But other sponsors told the AP they had done nothing to alter their marketing activities related to the Olympics, and some are continuing discussions on extending their Olympic deals beyond next year’s Summer Games in Sydney, Australia.

DeFrantz reiterated the IOC’s position that Salt Lake City would not be stripped of the Games because most of the facilities are in place and ready to go, adding: “Quite frankly, there is not enough time to change sites.”

‘Fewer Than a Dozen’ Will Be Asked to Quit

Michael Payne, the IOC’s top marketing official, said that the Olympics could be pulled out of Salt Lake “only in the event of war, earthquake or civil disturbance.”

DeFrantz, the first female vice president of the IOC and a likely candidate for the IOC presidency when Juan Antonio Samaranch’s term expires, said the IOC’s investigation would result in an unprecedented purge within the ranks of the organization.

“Fewer than a dozen” members will be pressured to resign, she said.

Members receiving letters about suspected bribe-taking will have 10 days to respond, after which the names will be made public Jan. 25 at a press conference at IOC headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland.

“By that time,” she said, “we believe that we will have those who need to resign clearly identified and, I hope, resignations in hand.”

Rene Paquet, who headed the Quebec City committee during the campaign that won Salt Lake City the Games in 1995, said one of the resignations tendered in Lausanne should be that of Samaranch.

“I think when you’re thinking of cleaning up the boat,” Paquet said, “you have to change the captain.”

DeFrantz said she would not name any of the allegedly guilty parties because the IOC’s due process includes the 10-day review. But it seems likely that one would be the IOC member from the Republic of the Congo, Jean-Claude Ganga, who has been the subject of numerous media reports that have him receiving special favors in a land deal from members of the Salt Lake Organizing Committee and getting a direct payment of $50,000 from former SLOC president Tom Welch.

Ganga, a prominent IOC member, denied any wrongdoing and defended his actions in an interview with French radio.

“I have done nothing wrong,” he told Radio France Internationale. “I will not become rich because I voted for Salt Lake City. That is why I am so serene.”

Ganga described the land deal, which was arranged by members of the Salt Lake bid committee and resulted in a reported $60,000 profit, as “normal” and said it “happened a long time after the vote. Therefore, it couldn’t have influenced me.”

The IOC investigation is one of four inquiries into the Salt Lake City situation. Continuing are investigations by:

* The Salt Lake Organizing Committee’s board of ethics, which is scheduled to announce its findings no later than Feb. 11.

* The U.S. Olympic Committee, headed by former Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell, due to submit a final report Feb. 28.

* The Justice Department and the FBI, with no timetable set.

In Salt Lake City, where local political pressure prompted the resignations last week of Salt Lake Organizing Committee president Frank Joklik and senior vice president Dave Johnson, Mayor Deedee Corradini, who was instrumental in bringing the 2002 Games to the city, announced that she would not run for a third term.

“Despite all the controversy swirling around Salt Lake City these days, I want you to know that this is a purely personal decision,” Corradini said at a meeting of her staff. “If I had wanted [to run], I am convinced I could have won. My plan is to go back to the private sector.”

Meanwhile, a group of Utah state legislators, led by House Minority Leader Dave Jones, demanded that the Salt Lake Organizing Committee open all its books.

“We are enduring daily revelations of bribery, greed and sleaze,” Jones said. “It is time to stop this tortuous dribble of information, open the books and let the sun shine in.”

DeFrantz was in San Antonio to deliver a keynote speech at the annual convention of the National Collegiate Athletic Assn. In her address, she praised the concept of amateur sports and the NCAA’s efforts to keep them pure and balanced within the educational demands of each university. But she clearly felt the need to meet, head-on in this public forum, the current Olympic mess.

Official’s Anger Is Clear

Her anger came through clearly both during her speech and in an interview afterward. During her address, she said that she was “tremendously sad” about the Salt Lake situation and called it “a very sad moment in Olympic history.” She also referred to those taking the bribes as people of “cowardice and corruption.”

Asked what she would say in Lausanne when she faced those who would be asked to resign--board members with whom she has built a relationship over her 12 years as an IOC member--she replied: “I will tell them that I am deeply sorry that they took the opportunity to abuse their responsibility.

“And I will also say that, sadly, since you did this, you can no longer be a part of the IOC.”

Dwyre reported from San Antonio, Penner from Los Angeles.