Juan Samaranch; part 2

Thanks to Jo Knowsley for this article.

IOC itself threatened

Andrew Jennings, the British author whose digging has done much to expose Olympic corruption in the past and who has published two books on the subject, believes the latest scandal threatens the IOC's very existence. "Those who defend the IOC will say that they are not guilty of corruption; that their members have been naive and do not realise the significance of accepting gifts or favours; that this has been caused by cultural differences. But that is rubbish. These are not poorly educated, or ignorant people. They all know how to spell the word 'steal.'"

The impetus for change, Jennings believes, will be the large corporate sponsors. "For the past 10 years, the IOC has sold out to sponsors," he said. "Now the sponsors have realised that it is the IOC that is the problem."

There have already been rumblings of concern from firms such as Nike and Coca Cola, which would run a mile in record time rather than be seen to be connected to anything unethical or unseemly. That they might withdraw from the Olympics altogether is, sports authorities admit, a devastating possibility.

"The worst scenario is that the big sponsors will leave the Games, which would leave the Olympics financially in terrible trouble," said Sir Robert Scott, chairman of the two unsuccessful Manchester bids for the 1996 and 2000 Olympics and the man behind the bid to erect the Dome in Greenwich.

Football endangered too

On the other hand, as he points out, it is the growth of corporate sponsorship that might be said to have encouraged the greed of cities, and of some IOC members, in the first place. The same dangers, he believes, are now present in football.

"You have to look at the reality," he said. "Britain, for example, is very interested in holding the 2006 World Cup. The FA is to spend £9 million to get it. What does that mean? It means spending that money to get at least 13 out of the 24 votes.

"The system as it runs now has become a problem. It is a very different one from that which ran the Olympics in 1948. But can you blame only the committee members? Cities have become incredibly aggressive in their attempts to win these bids."

Sir Robert said he had approached Samaranch in 1994 with concerns that corruption was

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