Rio chief raided in fresh cash for votes probe
THE corruption scandal that has erupted around the awarding of major sporting events escalated yesterday when the head of last year’s Rio Olympics was arrested amid fresh allegations of vote-buying.
A joint investigation between Brazilian and French authorities has led to the home of Brazilian Olympic Committee president Carlos Nuzman being raided.
Investigators revealed they had uncovered an international corruption scheme that again appears to involve Papa Massata Diack, the son of the former IAAF president Lamine Diack.
Officers in Rio de Janeiro emerged from Nuzman’s home with suitcases, documents and a computer, with the police confirming that detention warrants had been issued for Nuzman and an associate, businessman Arthur Cesar de Menezes Soares Filho. The authorities believe he is in Miami.
In dramatic scenes, Nuzman left his house accompanied by his lawyer, later arriving at a police station for questioning. His lawyer said his client would cooperate, stating that he ‘did not commit any irregularity’.
According to reports, a total of 11 detention warrants were issued in Brazil and France in what the authorities have called ‘Operation Unfair Play’. Nuzman is an honorary member of the International Olympic Committee and at a news conference yesterday the authorities said he was a central player in buying votes for Rio’s Olympic bid in 2009.
They claimed to have evidence of an alleged payment of $2million (around £1.25m) for the vote of Lamine Diack, paid by Soares Filho’s company, Matlock Capital Group. Diack was a voting IOC member at the time.
Prosecutor Fabiana Schneider said Sergio Cabral, the former governor of Rio de Janeiro who was recently jailed on a separate corruption conviction, was also a central figure.
‘The Olympic Games were used as a big trampoline for acts of corruption,’ said Schneider.
In a statement, the IOC said it had ‘learned about these circumstances from the media and is making every effort to get the full information’.
But a further embarrassment for the IOC is the fact that 75-year-old Nuzman is also a member of the 2020 Tokyo Games coordination commission — and it was not long after the Rio Games that IOC president Thomas Bach awarded Nuzman the ‘Olympic Order’.
Sportsmail revealed earlier this year that French financial investigators had seen evidence of payments linking the Tokyo bid to the Diacks.
That has formed part of an ongoing two-year investigation sparked by allegations of corruption in world athletics, in particular accusations that the Diacks were involved in extorting money from athletes to cover up positive drugs tests.
Yesterday the French Financial Prosecutors’ Office in Paris said it had ‘uncovered the existence of a system of large-scale corruption organised around Papa Massata Diack’. It also said its evidence indicated that votes by members of the IOC and the IAAF had been ‘negotiated against payment to obtain city hosting rights for the biggest global sports competitions’.
It was in March that the French newspaper, Le Monde, first reported that there had been a payment to the Diack family three days before the 2009 IOC vote for the 2016 Games.
Rio actually lost the first vote to Madrid but won the nomination on a third ballot, by 66 votes to 32.
An IOC spokesperson added that it was ‘in the highest interests of the IOC to get clarification on this matter’.