One of Sydney's Olympic Games directors sought in vain yesterday to call an emergency meeting of the organising board to discuss the furore over the city's right to host the 2000 event.

Sydney businessman John Valder, who represents Australia's Prime Minister John Howard on the Games organising committee, said the crisis that broke last week over Sydney's 1993 bid could threaten the funding and conduct of the 2000 Games.

"I would have thought public opinion would regard it as extraordinary when there is something of a crisis that a board does not meet and pretends it is not happening, he said. "Fairly drastic developments have taken place which could jeopardise the whole funding of the Olympic Games and the conduct of the Games," he said.

Michael Knight, the Olympics Minister for New South Wales state, declined Valder's plea for an urgent meeting.

Knight's spokesman said the board could wait until its next scheduled meeting on February 18th because members were being kept fully informed of developments.

John Coates, Australia's Olympic Committee president, said last week he had arranged sports funding totalling $1.2 million for 11 African countries just before Sydney won the 1993 bidding race by two votes over Beijing.

On the eve of the vote, Coates promised International Olympic Committee (IOC) delegates from Kenya and Uganda a total of $35,000 each to sponsor sports projects.

The revelations drew Sydney into the biggest scandal to hit the Olympic movement in its 105-year history - allegations that IOC officials had accepted $600,000 in goods and services from Salt Lake City in its successful bid for the 2002 Winter Games.

Sydney still has to raise about Aus$220 million to meet its Games funding target.

Games marketing head John Moore said that Sydney was on schedule to meet the target, but acknowledged the Olympic image had suffered some damage in the eyes of sponsors.

Valder said he was unaware of the details of the 1993 bid and his main worry was how the furore would affect fundraising.

Five of the 11 sports funding deals that helped to clinch Sydney's bid in 1993 were signed by African officials who have since been named in the Salt Lake City bribery inquiry.

Craig McLatchey, secretary general of the Australian Olympic Committee, said yesterday he was confident Sydney's bid tactics could withstand scrutiny.

"As for do we have the finer details, do we know they spent $1,000 or $5,000 on erecting soccer goal posts, no, we don't," said McLatchey.

But he added: "We have, I believe, measured up to all parts of the agreements we've signed, and provided the money on the basis that it is for sports projects."

Coates has defended his actions, saying last weekend: "I wasn't going to die wondering why we didn't win, like we didn't win with (earlier bids for) Brisbane or Melbourne."

But readers' letters published so far by Australian newspapers suggest many people think it was not worth getting the Games on those terms.

"I'm sorry, John Coates, but I would rather die knowing I hadn't bought the Olympics than die wondering why we hadn't won it," said one letter published in the Sydney Morning Herald.