IOC Wants Bid Cities to Clarify Incentives

The International Olympic Committee’s ethics watchdog summoned leaders from each of the five cities bidding for the 2012 Games for questioning Tuesday, apparently prompted by a London plan to lavish phone cards, free train travel and other benefits on athletes and others should that city be chosen to play host to the Games.

London officials said they had committed no wrongdoing. London, Paris, Madrid, Moscow and New York bid executives met with IOC ethics representative Paquerette Girard Zappelli, who offered no comment.

IOC spokeswoman Giselle Davies said there were issues that required “clarification” -- specifically whether incentives offered by each of the cities matched the plans they filed months ago with the IOC.

“She’s at this stage looking at it as a day-to-day issue to clarify,” Davies said, referring to Zappelli, an experienced French investigator. “We are not talking about investigations at this stage.”

The semantic distinction underscores the IOC’s zeal to avoid another scandal involving another bidding process. The IOC was shaken by revelations of Salt Lake City’s winning bid for the 2002 Winter Games -- which was based, in part, on more than $1 million in cash, gifts and other inducements.

Ten IOC members resigned or were expelled, and the IOC enacted a 50-point reform plan, which includes a ban on members’ travel to cities bidding for the Games. In a related development, the IOC in 1999 also created an ethics commission.

At meetings of international sports federations and of the IOC’s policy-making executive board here this week, London 2012 officials revealed a far-reaching package of subsidies and benefits.

Were London to win, officials said, each of the 10,500 athletes would be entitled to a phone card worth $100 in calls from the Olympic village; athletes would be due free train travel after the Games to British destinations; and each team member would get a “flexible” economy-class airline ticket to London.

In addition, organizers announced, any of the 202 national Olympic committees that wanted to bring their teams to Britain for training would be entitled to a $50,000 credit toward the cost of that training.

“We’re very happy to provide the clarification,” Mike Lee, a London 2012 spokesman, said. “As I’m sure the other candidate cities are too.”

New York officials on Sunday had said their plan includes free marketing assistance to the 28 Summer Games sports in the seven-year run-up to the Games via a committee to be chaired by NBA Commissioner David Stern, who appeared in front of an IOC inspection team that toured New York in February.

In other developments, the IOC executive board postponed a decision on a request by officials in Beijing, site of the 2008 Summer Games, to move the equestrian events to Hong Kong out of concern the horses might import equine disorders into mainland China. A decision is due by summer, Davies said.