IOC Has Slight Problem With the U.S.

An undercurrent of anti-U.S. sentiment emerges in an unprecedented review of the confidential minutes of the International Olympic Committee’s Executive Board, a tension that continues to fray the relationship between the IOC’s ruling members and its chief financial backer--the United States.

The friction was never more pointed than during the months the IOC was occupied with the Salt Lake City bid scandal, but was also evident when it came to other issues such as financing, performance-enhancing drugs or the commercialization of the Games, according to the records recently reviewed by The Times.

Such resentment has profound implications as four U.S. cities--New York, San Francisco, Washington and Houston--compete for the 2012 Summer Games. Top U.S. Olympic Committee members concede they are under pressure to extend U.S. goodwill as the Winter Olympic Games get underway here Friday.

“I think these Games are very important to the relationship between the United States Olympic Committee and the balance of the international Olympic movement,” USOC President Sandra Baldwin said. “I have long felt that we had to put America’s best foot forward in order to enhance any future bid for the Games on our home soil.”

The documents reviewed include minutes of dozens of meetings dating back three decades, offering a unique look at how some of the sporting world’s most powerful figures do business. The Times compiled the minutes from a variety of sources.In the past, Olympic observers found veiled slights directed against the U.S. in the subtleties of day-to-day Olympic business but had no proof to back up those perceptions. The minutes of closed-door meetings, however, include heated references to U.S. influence by the Executive Board, which currently does not include any U.S. representatives and has traditionally been dominated by Europeans.

When then-IOC president Juan Antonio Samaranch begrudgingly set off to appear before the U.S. Congress--he had been called there to testify about reform plans in the wake of the bribery scandal stemming from the bid that brought the Games to Salt Lake City--members of the Executive Board privately urged him not to comply.

One member, who advised Samaranch to refuse, accused Congress of treating Samaranch and the IOC as “servants” and said “such arrogance was unacceptable.”

Another member, Keba Mbaye of Senegal, once a judge on the World Court in The Hague, registered his opposition by declaring he “did not see how [the board] could accept a situation where the IOC and its members were threatened by a country, especially when people from that country had committed improper and disloyal actions in the Salt Lake City affair with impunity.”

And as Samaranch prepared to depart for the U.S., then-board member Jacques Rogge of Belgium urged him to take solace in a proverb from 17th-century French author Jean de la Fontaine: “The spittle of toads never reaches the light of the stars,” according to the minutes.

Rogge, who succeeded Samaranch as IOC president, insisted those words were merely colloquial advice to Samaranch to keep his chin up--not assigning Congress the role of toads.

“I am [a] diplomat and guarded enough not to say stupid things,” he said in an exclusive interview last week in which he sought to downplay conflict between the U.S. and the IOC, pointing instead to what he said is evidence of growing U.S. influence within the IOC.

Of the 372 names on the IOC commission roles, there are a record 29 Americans, he said. The U.S. has played host to the Games more than any other nation, and usually has a member on the Executive Board. Jim Easton of Van Nuys is up for election to the board today; Anita DeFrantz of Los Angeles served for many of the past several years.

“I don’t think there can be any criticism of the IOC not recognizing the unique role of the United States,” Rogge said. But he also allowed, “It would be hypocritical to say it was absolutely a honeymoon all the time.”

It is a basic premise of Olympic politics that Europeans dominate the membership rolls of the IOC and thus European sensibilities direct many of its decisions, records show.

It was affirmed last month when Rogge released a list of the IOC’s 25 working groups and commissions; 16 of which are headed by Europeans, including the key panels overseeing marketing and TV rights as well as the commissions serving as oversight for preparations for the 2004, 2006 and 2008 Games. Only one of the 25 is headed by an American--the Women and Sport group, chaired by DeFrantz.

At the same time, though, the $1.1-billion-per-year Olympic enterprise is heavily indebted to the U.S. Seven of the IOC’s 10 leading sponsors are U.S.-based and its chief financial underwriter is NBC, which is paying $3.5 billion for exclusive rights to televise the Games in the United States from 2000 through 2008.

The USOC holds such leverage that it--and it alone of the 199 nations in the Olympic movement--gets a special cut of the NBC money, currently 10% of the amount the network pays for each Games. In Salt Lake, that amounts to $54.5 million.

According to the minutes, the IOC board has regularly examined the United States’ primary role in financing the Olympic movement and bitterly criticized the USOC for seeking--and, often, obtaining--a disproportionately large share of income contributed to the IOC by U.S.-based corporations.

And there is still lasting bitterness about Congress’ decision in the late 1970s giving the USOC exclusive marketing rights to the Olympic rings in the United States.

But it was a perception of bullying tactics that inflamed Canadian IOC member Dick Pound, a Montreal attorney who negotiated many sponsorship deals on the IOC’s behalf. According to the minutes, Pound said a USOC representative warned the IOC it “should not even talk to U.S. corporations, as the IOC was [a] competitor in the marketplace.”

Pound said such tactics were “effectively destroying the Olympic brand in the U.S.”

The minutes also show the U.S. accused of being inconsistent in the fight against athletes’ use of illicit performance-enhancing substances. A number of members and staffers said they believe U.S. officials have not been forthcoming in disclosing positive drug tests.

Speaking Monday at the IOC’s public session, Pound called on international track and field officials to expel the U.S. federation for refusing to disclose names of athletes with positive tests. U.S. officials have consistently denied any wrongdoing.

For years, friction between the U.S. and the IOC has been a recurring feature of the Olympic dynamic. Before this week, for example, the Executive Board had not held a meeting in the United States since the close of the 1996 Summer Games in Atlanta, which has been perceived by some U.S. officials as a snub.

Only rarely, however, have such tensions surfaced publicly. USOC leaders are reluctant to discuss it, because it only adds to tensions.

DeFrantz, who as a former Executive Board member had unique insight into the board’s attitudes, offered a glimpse last summer, when she came in last among five candidates to succeed Samaranch. She accused IOC members of rejecting her because, she said, “I’m an American woman.”

The bid scandal in Salt Lake crystallized anti-U.S. resentments, particularly when Congress threatened Samaranch with a subpoena if he did not testify, according to the Executive Board minutes.

The Salt Lake scandal centered on revelations that bidders in Salt Lake had showered IOC members or their relatives with more than $1 million in cash, gifts and other inducements. Ten IOC members resigned or were expelled.

Further exacerbating tensions at the height of the scandal, the USOC commissioned its own inquiry into what would be called a “culture of improper gift giving” and suggested a series of reforms.

Shortly thereafter, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) sought Samaranch’s testimony in the spring of 1999, and sent him a letter asking him to address allegations “that a culture of corruption pervades the IOC.” Later in the year, Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.) demanded Samaranch’s appearance in Washington, this time before a House committee.

At the next IOC board meeting, in May, Prince Alexandre de Merode, a longtime Belgian member, declared that McCain’s letter was “extremely arrogant,” the minutes show. And, he said, “The IOC did not have to justify itself to the United States.”

Rogge told the board Samaranch ought not testify voluntarily “under any circumstances.” He said, “Despite good preparation and support, this would be bad PR and it would be an ambush by the USA.”

Japan’s Chiharu Igaya found it “difficult” to understand “the attitude of the American government.”

China’s He Zhenliang registered the fiercest opposition.

He did not wish, the minutes indicate, to “comment on [Upton’s] knowledge about the contemporary world, nor pass judgment on his IQ. But what [He] could not accept was the manner in which [Congress] was treating the IOC, a supranational organization, namely as if they were servants in his house. Such arrogance was unacceptable,” according to the minutes.

And if American sponsors threatened to withdraw support, so be it, He said. “The Olympic Games would be sure to continue, with or without American dollars.”

Samaranch appeared before Congress in December 1999, but it was hardly an ambush. Although there were calls for his resignation, mostly he played the role of international statesman, explaining what steps the IOC was taking to prevent another scandal.

USOC members are trying to foster better relations this month in Salt Lake City, said Baldwin, who said she nonetheless is “well aware it will take more than just my personal effort to eradicate feelings from the past.”

The U.S. shares some of the blame for rough relations within the Olympic movement for acting without regard to others, said Bob Ctvrtlik of Newport Beach, one of four Americans of the 121-member IOC.

“When we demand financial percentages of the revenue, which are defensible, we need to make the case to the rest of the world why we’re doing this, and why it’s appropriate,” the former volleyball player said. “Once we do that, it seems like the barriers break down... “If you look at it, just step back for a sec, it’s in the IOC’s best interests and the USOC’s best interests to have a good relationship. But like any relationship it takes a little nurturing.”