She had remained in the shadows, away from the affair. She broke the silence. Seiko Hashimoto, the president of the organizing committee for the Tokyo 2020 Games – and former Olympic minister – spoke for the first time on Thursday December 1 on the corruption scandal linked to the last summer Olympic and Paralympic meeting.
His remarks to the press will not reverse the course of the investigation, one way or the other. But the multiple Olympian, who arrived at the head of the organizing committee just a few months before the Tokyo 2020 Games, made no secret of it: the matter is serious. More serious: it casts a shadow over Tokyo 2020. And, by extension, over the image of the Olympics in Japan at a time when Sapporo still seems to be leading the race for the award of the Winter Games in 2030.
« This seems very serious, suggested Seiko Hashimoto to a question from Japanese media about the impact of the corruption scandal on Sapporo's candidacy. Importance and value of Tokyo Games questioned"
For Seiko Hashimoto, it is essential for Japan to shed light on the allegations of corruption as quickly as possible, in order to let Sapporo 2030 continue its campaign without having to drag the chain.
As a reminder, Tokyo prosecutors have been investigating suspicions of corruption linked to certain marketing contracts signed between the organizing committee and several partners or official supporters of the last Summer Games for several months.
The investigation has long focused on a single man, Haruyuki Takahashi, former boss of the Dentsu agency and former member of the board of directors of Tokyo 2020. He is accused of having received bribes, for a total amount estimated at nearly 1,4 million euros, in exchange for its influence in the negotiations between the organizing committee and certain private partners of the Games.
Since last month, the matter has moved to another area, that of the award of contracts for the organization of test events, the pre-Olympic events before the Tokyo Games. The latest episodes of the soap opera revealed that a large number of them would have been awarded without calls for tenders, or following rigged calls for tenders. No fewer than 26 markets were thus distributed, between May and August 2018, for the rights to 56 pre-Olympic events.
Embarrassing ? For sure. But, surprise, the maneuver would have been decided with the blessing of the IOC.
Our Agency Kyodo News reports, based on an anonymous source close to the matter, that the organizing committee for the Tokyo 2020 Games would have shared with the Olympic body details of how it intended to select the service providers in charge of the organization of the test events.
In April 2018, the Japanese organizers informed the IOC during a working meeting of their intention to award contracts for the organization of test events to companies with recognized expertise in the management of sporting events. . They would also have clarified, during the same meeting, their intention to then entrust them with the management of the same events at the Olympic and Paralympic Games.
In total, the cumulative amount of the contracts amounts to 20 billion yen (around 140 million euros at current prices).
According to the source cited by Kyodo News, the organizing committee would have justified to the IOC its approach, contrary to the rules for awarding contracts, by the need to succeed in the Games.
