Europeans Tighten IOC Grip

In an emphatic confirmation of European control of the largely U.S.-funded International Olympic Committee, Gerhard Heiberg of Norway was named Thursday as the IOC’s marketing chief, one of the most powerful posts in international sports, replacing Dick Pound of Canada.

Heiberg, 62, an Oslo businessman, served as president of the successful Lillehammer Winter Games in Norway in 1994. He has been an IOC member for seven years.

Pound, 59, a Montreal lawyer and an IOC member since 1978, is largely responsible for the IOC’s emergence over the last 20 years as a financial, broadcasting and marketing colossus. For instance, he negotiated the $3.5-billion deal that gave NBC, the IOC’s largest financial underwriter, exclusive U.S. TV rights to the Games from 2000 through 2008.

Heiberg’s appointment was announced at IOC headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland, by IOC President Jacques Rogge of Belgium, elected in July to succeed Juan Antonio Samaranch of Spain.

To win the presidency, Rogge defeated four others in a vote that affirmed traditional European political and cultural supremacy within the IOC. About half the IOC membership is European. Runner-up in the election was Kim Un Yong of South Korea. Pound was third, followed by Pal Schmitt of Hungary and Anita DeFrantz of Los Angeles.

Since being elected, Rogge has put influential European IOC members--a number of whom played important roles in lobbying for Rogge’s presidency--in key positions.

Hein Verbruggen of Holland, president of the International Cycling Union and an IOC member since 1996, was named head of the IOC task force that will oversee preparations for the 2008 Summer Games in Beijing.

Denis Oswald of Switzerland, president of the International Rowing Federation and an IOC member since 1991, took over the IOC committee supervising the delay-plagued run-up to the 2004 Summer Games in Athens.

Rogge had been the chief Athens liaison. He also ran the commission that supervised the successful 2000 Sydney Games.

Two-thirds of the IOC’s ruling 15-member executive board is European. None of the 15 is American, although Jim Easton of Van Nuys intends to run for an IOC vice presidency at a meeting held in conjunction with the Salt Lake City Winter Games. Only one of the 15 even hails from the Western Hemisphere, Mexico’s Mario Vazquez Rana.

Most of the financing for the Olympic movement, meantime, comes from U.S.-based corporations. Seven of the IOC’s 10 leading sponsors, each providing millions annually, are American corporations. Pound’s contacts, American-style sensibilities and negotiating savvy repeatedly proved critical in securing and maintaining those deals and in making the five interlocking rings one of the world’s most recognizable symbols.

Pound’s role within the IOC had been up in the air, however, since July’s presidential vote. Immediately after the election, Pound resigned as chair of the marketing commission and as the IOC’s TV rights negotiator, saying it was up to the new president to choose his own team. He did keep his IOC membership and retains his seat as chairman of the World Anti-Doping Agency.

A few days after the election, Pound sent a critical letter to Olympic sponsors. Rogge then publicly disclosed that Pound’s law firm had been paid more than $3 million over 16 years for Pound’s IOC work, saying there was nothing illegal about the deal but that he would not have condoned such an arrangement.

The two men also met several times, most recently last week in Lausanne, but could not reach agreement, and Pound chose not to return. The split was portrayed Thursday by both sides as mutual and amicable.

Pound declared it was time for a change, saying that after 20 years, “It’s kind of the Zsa Zsa Gabor sixth-husband syndrome.” He also said in a telephone interview, “I’ve got a good team and a good system in place. I’ve got all these long-term contracts in place, if the parties live up to them. This is the best time to pass it on, rather than waiting for it to be in the soup.”

Rogge said in a statement, “I regret this decision and take the opportunity to personally, and on behalf of the Olympic movement, thank Mr. Pound for everything he has done.”

Heiberg made worldwide headlines in October, when he was quoted in a Norwegian newspaper as saying, in an apparent reference to the Salt Lake Olympics, “A country at war can’t organize the Olympic Games.” He subsequently apologized, said his comments were taken out of context and reiterated his support for the Salt Lake Games. They begin seven weeks from today.