Rogge's First Challenge: 20-30 IOC Members Must Leave

The Olympic movement elects a new leader and immediately his American spin doctors encourage reporting that a new, golden era has dawned for world sport.

The choice of the Belgian surgeon Jacques Rogge is good news; any replacement will be better than the discredited Juan Antonio Samaranch and the murky way he manipulated Olympic politics.

It is true that no trace of corruption has ever surfaced about Rogge. No allegations of bribes or sexual impropriety tarnish his name. He is, we are assured, the right man to address the Samaranch legacy; corruption and the doping that threatens to destroy sport.

I have still to be convinced.

Rogge silent in sabotage of Osaka's bid for the Olympics 2008
Rogge has been conspicuous in recent years for sidestepping major moral issues at the IOC. Most re-cently he stood by silently as the IOC leadership deliberately and unrepentantly sabotaged Osaka's dreams of staging the Games of 2008.

It had all the hallmarks of another dark Samaranch coup. His evaluation panel, which drew up a report to guide IOC members on which city to choose, misrepresented the bid from Osaka. If Beijing was to win, as Samaranch intended, the other rival bid from Asia had to be destroyed.

It was easily done. The report stated, baldly, that the city of Osaka was unwise to take on a USD28 billion debt to finance construction for the Olympics - and so they were not a credible candidate.

Osaka's Mayor immediately denounced the report, saying that he and his team had made abundantly clear to the IOC that the Japanese government was paying most of the USD28 billion bill and that his city was only responsible for USD3 billion.

The IOC ignored his complaint and circulated their false report, damning Osaka - and the Japanese city was duly eliminated on the first round of the ballot.

Rogge was a member of the executive board - which declined to intervene. He went along with this perversion of the truth, presumably not wanting to alienate the powerful Samaranch on the eve of the election.

Rogge has also been silent on the issues of Beijing and human rights. He did not protest when Samaranch ruled the subject was irrelevant to the choice of the host for 2008.

Forever the IOC tell us that they set a moral lead to the world - but when a moral issue comes up on their radar, they duck it.

Rogge ducked again, back in May in Lausanne, when Samaranch announced that he was determined to have his son Juanito join the IOC. Many IOC members looked appalled at Samaranch's plan. I and a group of reporters asked Rogge to comment on this ugly nepotism but he replied "No comment."

20-30 IOC members should leave
Passing by on the other side of the road may have worked in the years before the presidential election but now Rogge must act if the IOC and the Games are again to be seen to have moral value.

Among his priorities must be forcing 20 or 30 members to leave. Olympic insiders know that the 10 forced out during the Salt Lake City cash-for-votes scandal were mostly the minor offenders.

Many of the dubious characters who remain members of the IOC, were recruited by Samaranch because they were already corrupt and so would be malleable to his agenda. Some of the most venal were protected by Samaranch but Rogge is free to assert his power and suggest they spend more time with their grandchildren.

This will be Rogge's first great test because he can move immediately - if he wants. He must step out-side his private old boys club, then look inside and ask himself; what contribution to Olympic idealism is made by Russian members Vitaly Smirnov and Shamil Tarpischev and Bulgaria's Ivan Slavkov.

As a tennis coach for the former Russian president Boris Jeltsin, Tarpischev was a natural choice as head of Russia's National Sports Fund, a strange scheme by which the fund got the exclusive rights to import tobacco and alcohol, provided that they would send the huge profits on to sports. Sportists are still waiting.

Ivan Slavkov came into the IOC's own spotlight and was investigated after one of his business associates apparently asked for cash-for-votes from the Cape Town team bidding for the Games in 2004.

Vitaly is involved in the costly, failed Olympic Lottery scheme in Moscow which is now the subject of litigation in Russia and Switzerland.

Smirnov's step-son, Andrei Petelin, set up the now collapsed White Flag Foundation in Lausanne which attracted criticism in the Swiss media for claiming to raise money for sport - but giving the appearance of supplying a fine life-style for the Smirnov family.

These should be the first members to be evicted. They should be joined by the spivs and agents who flourished under Samaranch and always get accreditation to meetings. The most objectionable is the Croat Goran Takac whose father was for many years Samaranch's highly paid sports adviser.

Goran Takac has traded on his father's connections, persuading Olympic bidding cities to part with millions of dollars for his advice on how to win.

Goran also rejects allegations that he has been the channel for bribes to IOC members. During the investigation into the Salt Lake scandals it was alleged that Goran had offered Vitaly Smirnov's vote to the Utah team for USD35,000.

Goran and Vitaly denied the allegation - and Samaranch said he believed them. Vitaly is also involved in the costly, failed Olympic Lottery scheme in Moscow which is now the subject of litigation in Russia and Switzerland.

A tainted head of IOC Ethics Panel
New President Rogge must ask some tough questions of Judge Keba Mbaye from Senegal who heads the IOC Ethics Panel, another Samaranch appointee who should be persuaded to retire.

Mbaye helped make the rule that members should not accept gifts of more than USD200 - then allowed the bid team from Atlanta to give him a USD600 golf putter plus a fabulous golfing holiday at Augusta.

As soon as he took over the ethics panel Mbaye announced that allegations that Atlanta gave bribes to win their Olympics were "trivial" and need not be investigated.

Mbaye was a member of the IOC team who made a tepid investigation into the Salt Lake allegations and decided that Korea's Kim Un Yong be given a "severe warning" about the activities of him and his family. Kim's son John is now a fugitive from the FBI and indicted in America on more than 20 charges involving an immigration scam.

So it was surprising to discover in Moscow last month that Judge Mbaye had signed Kim's nomination papers for the IOC presidential contest. That made more sense when it became known that one of the judge's eight sons, Ibrahima, is chief executive of a charity funded by Kim that distributes money to African sports officials. "It's purely humanitarian," says Kim.

Rogge does acknowledge that a real fight against drugs is overdue at the IOC. But again, he was silent when Samaranch declared in past years they were winning some "war" against doping. And in private, in the early part of 1999, he lobbied European governments, begging them to stay out of the new World Anti-Doping Agency. Fortunately, he was ignored.

Time will show if Rogge wants to change the private club IOC into an accountable public body. Now that would bring a change!