Sydney (Parliament Politics Magazine) – The historic 2000 Sydney Olypmics that were held 22 years ago in Australia were bought to a large extent. A senior official from the IOC has admitted that the bid was ‘bought to a large extent. The vice-president of the Olympic Committee John Coates revealed that the 2000 Olympic Games were awarded to Sydney because they were bought to a large extent. Coates has been serving as the vice-president of the Sydney bid. The bid took place seven years ago in an event back in 1993.
IOC Vice President Admits To Buying The Olympic Games To A Large Extent
An hour-long interview which was held in 2008 was recently discovered. In the interview, the IOC vice-president admits to offering Kenya’s IOC member Charles Mukora and Uganda’s IOC member Francis Nyangweso a huge payment in exchange for their votes in the favor of Sydney. He proposed this offer over a dinner event before the night of the official voting day. Coates revealed that he had offered the officials £28,000 ($35,000) to the two African National Olympic Committees. He was later cleared of any wrongdoing in 1999 and said that he did not offer the money directly.
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BBC Panorama Investigation Related To The Bribes
BBC Panorama investigated related to the bribes incident back in 2004. During the investigation, Coates claimed that he did not make any payments. He admitted that letters were handed over to the two African NOCs but he did make any offers to Uganda and Kenya for the assistance of the sport. These grants were not breaking any kind of IOC ruling. However, they were still banned by the committee. Coates’ comments about the offers have come out in the open.
Coates Also Offered Scholarships To The African Committees
Coates had also offered scholarships to the African committees. His huge financial support to the Chinese made headlines as well. Coates commented that our government doesn’t spend money just like that. He just went with a package of scholarships and offered them to the AIS.
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He admitted that they were just offering scholarships to the two athletes. The scholarship could have helped the coach to learn something and he could have passed his knowledge on to a large group of people. An IOC spokesperson revealed to a news portal that no rules were broken while making the offer. The legal team had confirmed that the committee had cleared that the Australian officials had not broken any rule at the time.