The International Olympic Committee (IOC) aim to restrict voting on who hosts Olympic Games to just their 11-man executive committee in the wake of allegations about widespread corruption, IOC president Juan Antonio Samaranch said in Geneva yesterday.
Samaranch, who saw the normally gentle IOC end-of-year conference last weekend explode when senior IOC member Marc Hodler alleged that four agents and an IOC member made millions out of delivering bloc votes to bidding cities, admitted that such a move would be difficult to pass.
"It's up to us, the executive committee, to persuade the plenary session to push through these measures," Samaranch said.
"It will not be easy because obviously we are proposing to the 114 members to effectively cut off their heads. But I believe after this scandal the IOC must recognise that the system must change," he added.
Hodler, an 80-year-old Swiss lawyer and a member of the IOC since 1963, imposed similar changes onto the International Ski Federation (FIS) when he was president after Sestriere controversially won the right to host the 1997 world ski championships.
Samaranch added that he would also be seeking to end trips by IOC members to bidding cities.
Meanwhile, IOC member Phil Coles said Sydney might not have won the right to stage the 2000 Games if the bidding process had been different.
At least four of the 11-person IOC executive board had been committed to Beijing winning the 2000 Olympic Games, he said.
