The Olympics

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News, information and stories about the Olympics.

Monday, May 23, 2005

IOC Avoids Further Corruption Embarrassment

The IOC, always a "tad mired" with the stench of corruption, has managed to avoid some embarrassment by the resignation of their vice president Kim Un Yong of South Korea.

Kim was due to face a vote for expulsion on corruption charges, his resignation saved the problems that this vote would have brought; namely the fact that he probably would have won it.

For those of you who don't have long memories, Kim was implicated in the Salt Lake City bribery scandal; where he was found to have made the organisers arrange a job for his son and musical appearances for his daughter, he had been resisting the IOC's attempts to expel him.

He currently resides in jail in South Korea, on charges of bribery and embezzlement. The good people at the IOC did at least manage to suspend his membership a year ago, when he was jailed.

Hardly an effective counter corruption policy, is it?

His resignation means that the vote on expulsion will now no longer be required. That vote would have, for reasons that only the IOC can explain, seen him supported by the membership.

Despite being corrupt, he was elected an IOC vice president two years ago.

Doesn't this tell you something about the IOC?

However, Kim was convicted of embezzling from the World Tae Kwon Do Federation, including $676K that had been donated by Samsung.

It seems that he used the money to buy the votes that won him the vice president's job!

I tell you, it really is about time that the Olympics were cut down to size and the IOC reformed.

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