Sport

Sponsor turns up the heat

A major Olympic sponsor has warned the International Olympic Committee that its bribery probe had better extend well beyond the…

Fri Jan 15 1999 - 00:00

A major Olympic sponsor has warned the International Olympic Committee that its bribery probe had better extend well beyond the Salt Lake Olympic organising scandal.

Four groups, including the US Justice Department, are looking into the biggest scandal in modern Olympic history, one which threatens to bring down IOC president Juan Antonio Samaranch.

An IOC probe has been completed and findings, including possible banishments of some of the 110 IOC members, are expected to be revealed on January 24th.

IOC officials have started talking to key Olympic global sponsors to reassure their major financiers all is well despite Salt Lake bidders giving cash and expensive gifts to IOC members to win the Games.

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But one is demanding a wider probe of IOC troubles and expects more than a few IOC members to take a fall to halt deeper probes into deeper troubles at the heart of the Olympic movement.

David D'Alessandro, president of a US insurance company that is among 12 global Olympic corporate sponsors, said the IOC must extend its probe of improper practices beyond Salt Lake City or face the consequences.

"If they fail to do that and something else comes up, the (Olympic) rings won't be tarnished. They will be broken," D'Alessandro told the New York Times.

Those with millions of dollars invested in Olympic sponsorships have much more to lose than others from an IOC that has questionable credibility trying to police itself, warned D'Alessandro.

"If they attempt to simply line up 12 IOC members and shoot them and think they can go back to Switzerland, they are wrong," he said.

D'Alessandro said "boardrooms will shake if this is mishandled" and mentioned NBC, the US broadcaster whose $3.5 billion deal for all US TV rights between 2000 and 2008 is a major source of IOC revenue.

"What the sponsors can't afford is a year from now, for the press or the Justice Department to find a series of aberrations about Atlanta, Sydney, Nagano or something else," D'Alessandro said.

"If that happens, the IOC will have lost its window of opportunity to purge itself."