LAUSANNE: Brazil’s entire national Olympic committee has been suspended by the International Olympic Committee following the rearrest earlier this week of its long-time supremo Carlos Nuzman on corruption charges writes KEIR RADNEDGE.
The 75-year-old has been accused of facilitiating the paying of bribes to IOC members who voted in Copenhagen in 2009 when Rio de Janeiro was handed host rights to the 2016 Games, the first time they had been awarded to South America.
Nuzman, who is president of the Brazilian Olympic Committee, has also been removed from the IOC coordination commission monitoring preparations for the 2020 Games in Tokyo.
Brazilian police have revealed 16 solid gold bars weighing 1kg each were found in a depository in Geneva and alleged they were among Nuzman’s hidden assets.
They also claimed the value of his estate had increased by 457pc over a decade as head of the country’s Olympic association and have requested legal assistance from the Swiss authorities.
Nuzman is accused of acting as a middleman between Brazilian businessman Arthur César de Menezes Soares Filho, nicknamed King Arthur, and Lamine Diack, the disgraced former president of international athletics.
Soares allegedly paid £1.2m into company accounts controlled by Diack’s son Papa Massata Diack to influence other African IOC voters.
IOC statement:
The IOC Executive Board (EB) has taken note and discussed the circumstances of the allegations against and the arrest of Mr Carlos Nuzman, in particular concerning the vote for the host city of the Olympic Games by the IOC Session in 2009.
With regard to the status of Mr Carlos Nuzman as an IOC Honorary Member, the EB, following the recommendation of the IOC Ethics Commission decides with immediate effect:
With regard to the Brazilian Olympic Committee (COB), the EB states that the COB and its President, Carlos Nuzman, were responsible for the candidature of Rio de Janeiro in 2009. Therefore, the EB takes the following decision with immediate effect:
With regard to the Rio Organising Committee, the EB notes that Mr Carlos Nuzman since its formation was and still is its President and Mr Leonardo Gryner having worked in the Organising Committee for many years. Therefore, the EB takes the following decision:
The IOC reiterates its full commitment to the protection of the integrity of sport. The IOC will continue to address any issue affecting this integrity under the rules and regulations of its recently reformed governance system. In order to follow up this case properly, the EB asks all judicial authorities to provide the IOC Ethics Commission with all the available information at their earliest convenience.
The IOC will continue to fully cooperate with all these judicial authorities. It is in the highest interests of the IOC to be able to fully address such matters concerning an IOC Member or an IOC Honorary Member as soon as possible, in order to protect its reputation as an organisation.
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