IOC to Probe Other Cities That Made Bids for Games

With 14 of its members already implicated in the Salt Lake City bribery scandal, the International Olympic Committee is still investigating as the inquiry panel expands its probe to other cities that have bid for the Olympic Games during the last decade.

According to IOC Vice President Dick Pound, who is coordinating the investigation, the inquiry panel is looking at “an indefinite number” of other members in connection with the bid campaigns for the 1996 and 2000 Games--Sydney 2000 and Toronto’s losing 1996 campaign among them.

One published report put the number of IOC members under investigation at “at least three.”

The IOC’s Salt Lake City inquiry prompted the resignation of four IOC members, with five others facing expulsion in mid-March. Three others remain under investigation and another received a warning.

Among those facing expulsion, Jean-Claude Ganga of the Republic of Congo has called the IOC purge a face-saving--and presidency-saving--measure orchestrated by the organization’s embattled leader, Juan Antonio Samaranch.

“He’s saving his skin by throwing shame on others,” Ganga said of Samaranch in an interview with the French newspaper Liberation.

“We used to be friendly, but if he tries to get rid of his friends, that will be very dangerous for him.”

The IOC panel’s report on the Salt Lake City bid cited Ganga as the recipient of $216,000 in gifts and cash payments from members of the city’s bid committee. Ganga, however, has denied any wrongdoing and says he will defend himself before his colleagues at a special IOC meeting scheduled for March 17-18.

Technically, Ganga and the four others facing expulsion have already been “excluded” from IOC activities, but can appeal for reinstatement at the March meeting. Expulsion requires a two-thirds majority vote of the IOC’s 115 members, and Ganga believes he can muster enough votes to block his ouster. Ganga said he expects “at least 40” members to support his appeal.

If so, Ganga could force a showdown within the IOC. Pound said the reinstatement of any of the excluded members probably would lead to the resignation of the IOC’s executive board.

“That would be a serious point of nonconfidence,” Pound said.

Chile’s Sergio Santander, one of the five facing expulsion, has been suspended as president of the Chilean Olympic Committee as a result of the charges against him. Santander held a news conference earlier this week to dispute claims that he took money from the Salt Lake City bid committee.

Santander, however, did admit accepting “an absolutely modest” cash donation from former Salt Lake City bid president Tom Welch to support his unsuccessful 1993 campaign for mayor of Santiago. Santander described the money as a personal contribution from Welch and his wife, not a gift from the bid committee.

In a related development Friday, the Spanish daily El Mundo reported that Manuel Romero, the Olympics’ chief television organizer for the last three Summer Games, received $1.5 million from an electronics company for services rendered during the 1992 Barcelona Olympics.

The report said Romero was paid by the now-defunct PESA electronics firm, which won the contract to supply audiovisual equipment for the ’92 Games. Romero denied that charge in an interview with the Barcelona newspaper El Periodico de Catalunya, but admitted receiving $1.5 million from Panasonic for “unspecified services.”

Panasonic was the official telecommunications sponsor of the 1992 Summer Olympics.

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The Associated Press contributed to this story.