BERLIN, April 20: International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Jacques Rogge has warned the five cities hoping to stage the 2012 Games to steer clear of igniting a bidding war. The Belgian defended his strict stance regarding bidding rules on Wednesday, warning that cities planning to spring surprises before the July 6 vote would be “unwise”.

“We do not want a kind of bidding war in the final few days,” he said. “This would not be good for the Olympic movement, it would not be the sort of bidding that we want to have.”

London, Madrid, Moscow, New York and Paris are in the running to stage the Games and IOC members will vote for the host city at their Session in Singapore.

An inducements row simmered at the IOC’s executive board meeting in Berlin this week after London unveiled a host of cash subsidies aimed at gaining favour with sporting bodies.

New York mayor Michael Bloomberg had earlier offered sports federations a chance to gain a foothold in the lucrative U.S. market as part of their pitch to win the race. New York also offered free office space with computers, phones and staff to sports federations.

New York and London were the only two cities to announce major new initiatives to sports federations.

While neither city was accused of contravening rules, there was sufficient concern that the IOC’s Ethics Commission called in each of the five bid teams one-by-one to “clarify” a number of issues.

Both London and New York’s bid teams strenuously deny any wrongdoing, saying their proposals are accounted for in their official bid books submitted last year.

Rogge, however, defended the Ethics Commission’s decision to examine the presentations.

“Candidate cities have to understand where we come from,” he said.

“We come from a period of excesses, from a period of red-carpet treatment and we come from a period where we had a corruption scandal in Salt Lake City.

“You will never stop forceful characters with means and ambition from bid cities saying ‘We want to do more’. It is our job to say ‘That is enough’.

“But remember where we (IOC) come from and where we never want to go back.

“I want a fair system for candidate cities and I want a fair system for the IOC.”

Rogge said any proposals not clearly outlined in a city’s bid book would be scrutinised and evaluated by the Ethics Commission.

“The bid books are exactly what count,” Rogge said. “In this case there were proposals from two cities which we knew nothing about and I think it would have been wiser had we known.

“To be the referee is never an easy situation...people always shout at the referee, they criticise the referee they never agree with him.

“But definitely the rules are very clearly set out. Whether people want to read the rules is another question and this is not the fault of this commission.” —Reuters