Curious birthday. At a time when Japan should be analyzing and measuring the legacy of the Tokyo 2020 Games (July 23 to August 8, 2021), a year after the event, post-Olympic news in the archipelago continues to be cluttered by business.
In the center of the file, Haruyuki Takahashi (photo above). The former boss of the Dentsu group, member of the board of directors of the former Tokyo Games organizing committee (it was dissolved in June), is suspected of corruption. Through his consulting firm, he would have received the sum of 45 million yen (around $340.000), from 2017 until July 2021, from one of the many sponsors of the Games, the brand of Aoki costumes.
The facts are known. Their revelation dates back to last month. Last week, a search was carried out at the request of the prosecutor at the home of Haruyuki Takahashi. The former president and founder of the Aoki Holdings company, Hironori Aoki, now retired, was also interviewed by investigators. His home was also searched.
Haruyuki Takahashi does not deny having received the sum of 45 million yen through his consulting firm. But he assures that these successive payments had no direct relationship with the Tokyo Olympic Games, nor with his status as a member of the Tokyo 2020 board of directors.
Since October 2018, Aoki has been among the long list of national partners of the Tokyo 2020 Games, as an official supporter, the third level of the national marketing program. During the application phase, the brand dressed the Tokyo 2020 delegation to the IOC session in Buenos Aires in September 2013, where the Japanese capital won the prize. According to his own figures, Aoki has sold more than 30.000 costumes from his collection in the Tokyo 2020 colors.
Our Agency Kyodo News reveals today that the financial relations between Aoki and Haruyuki Takahashi would in reality involve a sum significantly higher than the 45 million yen initially mentioned. Citing several anonymous sources, the Japanese agency explains that the clothing brand also paid around 230 million yen ($1,7 million) to Haruyuki Takahashi as part of its Olympic partnership program.
The former director of Dentsu was supposed to donate it to athletes or groups of athletes preparing for the Olympic and Paralympic Games. The only problem, but a major one: he would have kept more than half of it (150 million yen).
Always according Kyodo News, Aoki had allocated the sum of approximately 500 million yen ($3,8 million at current prices) to his Olympic partnership, half of which was to be allocated to the athletes. This last operation was carried out via a manager from Dentsu, the largest advertising agency in Japan, very involved with the Games organizing committee. The funds were transferred to Haruyuki Takahashi's consulting firm through a Dentsu-affiliated company.
As part of this operation, a dinner would have brought together Hironori Aoki, the founder and president of Aoki, and Haruyuki Takahashi in a Tokyo restaurant. The first of the two men allegedly gave the second a letter containing all the company's requests related to the Olympic Games. Haruyuki Takahashi told investigators that the letter had nothing to do with the Olympics, but that he destroyed it.
