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IOC launches inquiry into reports of Rio-2016 Olympic bid’s alleged bribery

The media reported that the former governor of Rio de Janeiro had confessed to paying a bribe to then-president of IAAF to secure the votes in favor of Brazil’s bid to host the 2016 Olympics

MOSCOW, July 5. /TASS, Artyom Kuznetsov/. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) is inquiring into reports about an alleged bribery scheme used to select Rio de Janeiro as the host of the 2016 Summer Olympic Games, the IOC press office said in a statement addressed to TASS.

The Brazilian daily O Globo reported late on Thursday that former governor of Rio de Janeiro Sergio Cabral, who is currently serving a long-term sentence on counts of corruption and fraud, had confessed that in 2009 he had paid a bribe to then-President of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) Lamine Diack to secure the votes in favor of Brazil’s bid to host the 2016 Olympics.

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Cabral also testified, according to the daily, that nine members of the IOC (International Olympic Committee), including Olympic legends Alexander Popov of Russia and Sergey Bubka of Ukraine, had been bribed as well to vote for Rio de Janeiro.

"The IOC Chief Ethics and Compliance Officer (CECO) has immediately followed up on the allegations made by the former Rio State Governor Sergio Cabral, who is already serving a jail term for corruption," the IOC statement reads.

"The CECO has contacted the IOC Members mentioned in his testimony," according to the statement. "The IOC is fully committed to address any issues also those which happened before the far reaching reforms of Olympic Agenda 2020."

"With these reforms the IOC has turned the page with regard to good governance and in particular the procedure of the election of host cities," the statement added.

The voting for the host city of the 2016 Summer Olympic Games was held in three rounds on October 2, 2009 at the 121st IOC Session in Copenhagen, Denmark. In the final third round of voting Rio de Janeiro’s bid won with 66 votes against Spain’s Madrid with 32 votes.

Popov, a four-time Olympic champion in swimming and an honorary member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), told TASS on Friday he intended to file a defamation lawsuit in the wake of reports over his alleged involvement in the suspected bribery scheme.

Russia’s 47-year-old legendary swimmer served as a member of the International Olympic Committee between 2000 and 2016. He is currently a non-voting honorary member of the IOC.

World’s pole vault legend Sergey Bubka, who is a member of the IOC since 1999 and is also the president of the Ukrainian National Olympic Committee, has also denied the allegations on his involvement in the unproved bribery scandal.

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