PARIS suffered the biggest blow so far to its hopes of staging the 2012 Olympic Games when a key French Olympic official announced yesterday that he would not be going to the vote in Singapore on July 6 because of his role in a politically explosive trial.
As Lord Coe flew from Britain last night to prepare for the vote, the decision boosted his hopes of snatching the Games from London’s main rival and the long-time front-runner, over which there is hanging the stench of corruption. After a previously calm build-up to the ballot, Guy Drut, one of the three French International Olympic Committee (IOC) members, said yesterday that to avoid any chance of hurting the Paris bid he would not be travelling to Singapore.
Drut, the former Olympic 110 metres hurdles champion and a member of the Paris board, was to have been a vital figure in the last-minute lobbying, which will be crucial to winning the vote in one of the tightest competitions for the right to stage the world’s biggest sporting event.
Instead, he put out a statement, saying: “In order to avoid any abusive and malicious exploitation of the court case concerning me, and in which I believe I will be found innocent, I have decided not to attend the next IOC Session in Singapore from July 5 to 9.”
The verdict on Drut and his 46 co-defendants is expected next week. In his summing-up this month, the prosecuting counsel asked for Drut to be fined £60,000 and receive a suspended 18-month jail sentence.
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Should Drut be found guilty before the vote, it would be hugely embarrassing for Paris, particularly because the alleged corruption occurred when Jacques Chirac was Mayor of Paris from 1977 to 1995. Chirac, who will be addressing the IOC Session on July 6 before flying to Britain for the G8 summit at Gleneagles, has presidential immunity from investigation until his term ends in 2007.
When Drut gave evidence in the case in May, he said that he would step aside if he thought that he was harming the bid. Most of his co-defendants have faced charges that there was an agreement between leading political parties and building companies, including General des Eaux, now called Vivendi, to get kickbacks for contracts for the refurbishing of schools in Paris. A total of more than £2 billion is claimed to have been paid.
Drut, a former Sports Minister, has been accused of receiving £2,500 a month between 1990 and 1992 for promoting BTP Sicra Goods, a subsidiary of Vivendi. Drut has denied the charge and insists that the money was for legitimate private work.
Since the “votes for favours” scandal over the Salt Lake City bid for the 2002 Winter Olympics, the IOC has been anxious to avoid another corruption scandal in the movement. Dr Jacques Rogge, the IOC president, has staked his reputation on stamping on any hint of financial malpractice. His leading rival for the presidency in 2001, Un Yong Kim, is under suspension by the IOC after he was jailed in a corruption trial in South Korea, while Ivan Slavkov, the Bulgarian accused in the
BBC Panorama programme last summer of allegedly being open to bribery, has also been suspended.
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Rogge said in Athens at the time of the decision on Slavkov: “This (action) shows the resolve of the IOC to have zero tolerance on corruption.”
London has been warned not to use bid ambassadors, such as Sven-Göran Eriksson and David Beckham, in celebrity photo shoots in Singapore. The IOC Ethics Commission has said that the bid ambassadors should be paraded only at official press conferences or media briefings. This ruling will also affect other cities, such as New York, for whom Muhammad Ali will be part of the delegation, and Madrid, for whom Raúl, one of Beckham’s team-mates at Real Madrid, will be appearing.
Before leaving for Singapore, Coe said that Beckham had been involved in promoting sport in East London, where he was brought up. “These are not expensive calling cards that we are suddenly bringing out at the last moment,” Coe said. “Their programme will be absolutely appropriate. This is not an orgy of publicity. They are there actually for a purpose and that purpose is their part in our narrative.”
In Madrid, the bookmakers’ third favourite to win the 2012 Games, bid organisers said they were confident that Saturday’s bomb blast outside La Peineta Stadium, where the Games are scheduled to be held, would not affect the vote. ETA, the Basque separatist group, said that it was responsible for the incident, in which there were no casualties and only minor damage.
In February, a car bomb went off in Madrid shortly after the IOC Evaluation Commission had inspected the city’s plans. Forty-three people were injured.
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LONDON 2012 CANDIDATE CITY
London’s 100-strong team for Singapore is not short on stars from the world of sport:
David Beckham
Sir Bobby Charlton
Jonathan Edwards
Sven-Göran Eriksson
Cathy Freeman
Dalton Grant
David Hemery
Dame Tanni Grey-Thompson
Colin Jackson
Denise Lewis
Sir Matthew Pinsent
Sir Steve Redgrave
Shirley Robertson
Daley Thompson