Pressure mounts on IOC president

The Olympic corruption scandal grew significantly yesterday when an Australian official revealed he had offered nearly £22,000 in inducements each to two African members of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) the night before Sydney was awarded the 2000 Summer Games. John Coates, Australia's senior IOC member, who said he was not involved in the offer, acknowledged that the inducements could be seen as bribes and could prompt demands for Sydney to be stripped of the Games.

The latest development in the mushrooming corruption crisis increases the pressure on IOC president Juan Antonio Samaranch to resign and comes on the same day that a Libyan delegate became the second IOC member to resign in connection with vote-buying charges stemming from Salt Lake City's selection as host of the 2002 Winter Games.

Bashir Mohamed Attarabulsi submitted his resignation in person to Samaranch, a day before a special IOC commission concludes its inquiry into the Salt Lake scandal.

Samaranch did not rule out other resignations this weekend. He said seven other IOC members face possible expulsion in the Salt Lake case.

John Coates, the president of the Australian Olympic Committee and a leader of the 2000 Sydney bid, said he had offered the money to the national Olympic committees of Kenya and Uganda.

The offer was made to IOC members Charles Mukora of Kenya and Maj Gen Francis Nyangweso of Uganda at a dinner in Monte Carlo, Monaco, on September 22nd, 1993, the night before Sydney beat Beijing by two votes for the right to stage the 2000 Games.

Coates was quoted as saying in the Sydney Morning Herald: "My view was it might encourage them to consider their votes for Sydney."

Sydney won 45-43 on the final ballot, but Coates denied the money was a bribe and said it would go towards helping sport in Kenya and Uganda.

Details of the offer were contained in a package of previously confidential Sydney bid documents released yesterday by Coates.

The documents also disclosed that Coates had written to Mukora and Nyangweso a month before the vote, offering to put them up at Sydney's expense at the luxury Dorchester Hotel in London on their way to Monaco.

Meanwhile, a small group of top officials spent last night huddled at the IOC's plush headquarters at the Chateau de Vidy in Lausanne debating whether the 78-year-old Spaniard has the stomach for the overhaul they all believe the organisation needs to survive this crisis.

Richard Pound, a Canadian lawyer who is the IOC's chief investigator into the Salt Lake Winter Olympics bribery scandal, will tomorrow present a report to his executive board which, although confidential, is expected to do little to support Samaranch.

It will conclude that influence-peddling by cities dates back to the early-1980s. It will also note that the Salt Lake City bid committee wrote to Samaranch in 1991 complaining of the activities of an agent offering votes for cash, but that no action was taken.

Samaranch is adamant he will not resign. "We are all going through a difficult time now but remain confident that after the storm calm will prevail," he said yesterday. Ireland's IOC representative, Pat Hickey, also said yesterday that he was unaware of any immediate threat to Samaranch's presidency.

There is little doubt that officials of Quebec City, Ostersund and Sion - the three cities who bid against Salt Lake for the 2002 Games - would probably love to see Samaranch dethroned, and his corrupt subjects swept out of power with him.

"He travels the world like royalty," said Jean-Paul L'Allier, the mayor of Quebec. "The time has come for the IOC to be more democratic and accountable. If that means a change at the top, then so be it.

"We feel we've been had. The IOC impressed upon us many times, and at great length, that they had tough new rules and that they would be enforced. And now we know that they were not."

Jean Grenier, the head of Quebec's campaign, kept a black book on each of the 89 IOC members who visited his city. They were each provided with first-class air fares for two, luxury hotel suites, limousines and meals at the best restaurants.