International Olympic Committee (IOC) Vice-President Kevan Gosper said the only way to secure the IOC’s future is for the IOC to take a more hands-on approach to scaled-down Games.
Gosper revealed that the IOC was close to collapse before the Sydney Olympics. Also NBC and other sponsors were ready to mount an alternative Games after the Salt Lake City scandal. “That risk existed last year. Very seriously”, Gosper told the Australian newspaper.
“You must never say that no one else could take you over. That is the first lesson business teaches you”, he said.
And he added that the crisis the Sydney Organizing Committee went through in the build-up to the Sydney Games demonstrated the need for the IOC to get more involved in the running of the Games. “If the IOC is going to bankroll about 50 per cent of the cost of staging a Games, it can’t continue to be as remote from the risk, responsibility and accountability. Its current distance is courting disaster”, he said.
Calling for greater scrutiny of bids, Gosper said the IOC should appoint its own deputy chairman, financial director and technology director to the organzing committee.
Gosper also claimed the IOC had lost focus. “Under the modernization of the Games under Samaranch, we have spread over a wide range of activities… We have to narrow to the core, like any business which has gone through a period of rapid expansion. Coring back allows you to put more money into the essentials”. The priority was for fewer sports and media at future Games.
