LONDON, Nov 16: The biggest corruption scandal in the history of the Olympics has died a quiet death in a U.S. courthouse.
Newspaper notices of its demise were brief and low-key across the world.
The Salt Lake City scandal, which led to 10 members leaving the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and to an array of calls for former IOC president Juan Antonio Samaranch to quit in 1999, was finally killed off by a U.S. federal judge.
The Salt Lake judge on Thursday dismissed the final 11 charges against two former Utah Olympic executives in a bribery scandal that tarnished the city’s successful bid to secure the 2002 Winter Games in the 1990s.
The ruling merited just a paragraph in many newspapers around the world.
Many of them had called for Samaranch to resign in major articles after 10 members resigned or were expelled from the IOC for breaking rules on accepting gifts or favours from the city.
IOC chiefs have been trying to persuade the world for the last year that the scandal was over because the organisation had introduced reforms, including a ban on members visiting cities bidding for the Games.
But they were never totally convincing, with the U.S. Justice Department’s investigation into the affair and the court case lurking in the background.
Now that threat has gone. Thursday’s ruling provided a huge boost to the IOC ahead of the Games next February.
For two years the IOC, accused of being an exclusive sports club for men in suits, struggled to shake off an image of corruption since the scandal began at the end of 1998.
Olympic chiefs feared the trial would blow up again in Salt Lake during the Games.
Samaranch told IOC members at a meeting before last year’s Sydney Olympics that it was possible that documents about IOC members, which were in the hands of the U.S. government, could be made public during the Games.
That has now become unlikely after U.S. District Judge David Sam dismissed the remaining counts against Tom Welch, former president of the Salt Lake City Olympic bid committee and Dave Johnson, the former vice president.
They were charged in July 2000 with buying votes to win the Games for Utah.
The original indictment alleged that the two men made $1 million in illicit payments to influence members of the IOC. Shortly before the two were indicted in July 2000, they rejected an offer from prosecutors to plead guilty to one felony charge.
They have maintained their innocence, saying other Olympic bid officials knew they had pulled out all the stops to get the Games.
Salt Lake Organising Committee President Mitt Romney, who took over after the scandal broke, had little comment on the judge’s order.
“The Olympics have always been about athletes, not men in suits,” he told reporters.
A year ago many predicted the build-up to the Games would be dominated by the talk of sleaze.
Now security is likely to be the most important issue after the September 11 attacks on the United States, with much of the world’s focus on competitors’ safety.
Some have suggested that the Games might not go ahead, while earlier this month several French skiers admitted they were afraid to travel to the Olympics.—Reuters