Questions Hover Over Kim’s IOC Candidacy

An 11th-hour ethics investigation sparked by the Netherlands’ Prince of Orange and focusing on South Korea’s Kim Un Yong threatened late Sunday to reshape the International Olympic Committee’s presidential campaign.

The prince asked the IOC’s Ethics Commission to investigate Kim after reports were published Sunday that suggested Kim, one of five presidential candidates, had said IOC members should get $50,000 annually to cover Olympic-related expenses. Kim has repeatedly urged that members get “financial support for office and expenses,” but insists he never has proposed a certain sum and maintained there had been a misunderstanding.

The commission, meantime, issued a news release Sunday evening--just hours before the vote this morning--saying it had noted the matter but would issue no warning or other punishment. Keba Mbaye of Senegal, an IOC member and the commission chairman, said, “The case is finished.” But as lobbying continued early into the morning, it remained unclear if the incident would affect the race.

Asked if the ethics commission’s release would damage Kim’s candidacy, IOC member Thomas Bach of Germany said: “I think it speaks for itself.” The prince confirmed he had written a letter asking for the investigation but otherwise declined comment. Some of Kim’s supporters questioned the timing of the incident, and Kim said it might actually help: “Better propaganda for me.”

Kim and four others--Anita DeFrantz of Los Angeles, Dick Pound of Canada, Jacques Rogge of Belgium and Pal Schmitt of Hungary--are vying to replace Juan Antonio Samaranch of Spain, IOC president for 21 years. Kim, Pound and Rogge have the most support. The winner will be the IOC’s eighth president.

The development came on a day when the IOC, whose members like to say that sports and politics should stay separate, was dominated by its internal machinations and politics of the geopolitical sort.

Chinese leader Jiang Zemin, arriving in Moscow to see Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin, paid a visit to Samaranch. Friday, the IOC awarded the 2008 Summer Games to Beijing.

Costas Simitis, the prime minister of Greece, also in Moscow, delivered a speech at the IOC’s all-delegates session Sunday afternoon aimed at reassuring members about the progress of preparations for the 2004 Games in Athens.

Simitis said he wanted to tell the IOC in “plain and direct terms” that the Games have his and the Greek government’s “total and complete commitment.”

Also in the session, Italian IOC member Mario Pescante spoke at length about his concerns regarding the increasing assertion of jurisdiction and authority by some European governments--France and Italy, in particular--over athletes’ use of banned drugs. Samaranch said the IOC should convene a “summit” meeting by the end of the year to weigh options. “Today it’s a mess,” he said.

Until the episode involving Kim, the IOC’s Ethics Commission had not been called on to get involved in the race to succeed Samaranch.

Two years ago, Kim was censured for his role in the Salt Lake City corruption scandal, receiving a “most serious” warning from the IOC; his son allegedly accepted a sham job funded by the Salt Lake bid committee for the 2002 Games.

The elder Kim had mounted a strong comeback, and as part of his presidential campaign, had called for IOC members to get “financial support for office and expenses.” He said Sunday that the $50,000 figure was supplied by reporters and asserted repeatedly that he has never promised or proposed a fixed sum to members.

The episode began late Saturday night in an impromptu interview Kim held with six reporters--two American, two German, two Australian--in a hallway near the lobby of the Mezhdurodnaya Hotel.

Referring to Kim’s campaign plank for office support, Vicki Michaelis of USA Today asked the IOC board member if he had “a figure in mind.”

“I’ll tell you if I’m elected,” he said.

Then Lisa Riley Roche of the Deseret News in Salt Lake City said: “The figure that’s floating around is $50,000 U.S., is that what you’re talking?”

Kim replied: “Minimum, minimum.”

Per year? “To keep [an] office. Yeah, a year.”

Someone interjected while he was speaking, did he mean $50,000 per month? “Not [a] month,” he said, adding to laughs that $50,000 per month “is too much.”

He then said, “Minimum,” apparently meaning $50,000 annually. “Because for me, $50,000, for example is not big. But for many parts of the world, that would cover one year or something to keep [an] office. Or something.”

Jacquelin Magnay of the Sydney Morning Herald in Australia then began to ask another question, but Kim talked over her voice to say his plan did not boast “an exact figure yet, you know, but some necessary expenses.”

He said Sunday night he had focused throughout the day on promoting his candidacy. “Shaking hands around--why not?”