FED: Time to put up or shut up on Oly bribes claims PM

AAP General News (Australia)
12-21-1998
FED: Time to put up or shut up on Oly bribes claims PM

CANBERRA, Dec 21 AAP - The 2000 Olympics had not been harmed by allegations about bribery
in Olympic bids, and people making allegations about Sydney's bid should put up or shut up,
Prime Minister John Howard said today.

Mr Howard said he did not think Sydney's Olympic organisation had been damaged by
revelations that Salt Lake City, winning bidder for the 2002 Winter Games, had given
scholarship funds to 13 people, including six relatives of International Olympic Committee
members.

Senior IOC member Marc Hodler said that a group of agents, including one IOC member,
claimed to have successfully bought votes in the past.

Hodler, a Swiss lawyer, said that up to 25 unnamed IOC members may have received favours or
cash for votes in four recent elections to choose Olympic sites.

But he also said he had no evidence that Sydney's successful bid in 1993 was involved in
the scandal.

"On the bribery thing, I don't think those allegations that were made by that man in
Switzerland did much damage to Sydney's bid," Mr Howard told Brisbane radio 4BC.

"I thought they were pretty convincingly repudiated by (SOCOG vice president) Phil Coles
and others.

"That person should've put up or shut up. I thought they were rather generalised smears
which did him more damage than other people."

Mr Howard acknowledged that there were some question marks over the propriety of some
international sporting bids.

"I'm not saying there hasn't been some improper practices in relation to sporting bids at
various stages ... I just didn't think they resonated very strongly in relation to Sydney at
all."

But Mr Howard said some of the "back biting and disputes and political concentration" in
Australia's Olympic organising body, SOCOG, had done damage.

"I want to play the role of the federal government being there to help and being an honest
broker," he said.

The federal government had put a lot of resources into the staging of Sydney's 2000 Games
and he would be meeting Premier Bob Carr to discuss outstanding matters, he said.

"These are not New South Wales' Games, they're really games that belong to the whole
Australian community," he said.

"My principle aim as prime minister is to give the whole of the Australian community a
greater sense of ownership of the Games."

AAP daw/ss/it/br

KEYWORD: OLY BRIBES HOWARD

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