Japanese Olympic chief to quit amid corruption allegations scandal

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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/19/japan-olympic-committee-president-tsunekazu-takeda-to-resign-corruption-allegations-scandal

Japanese Olympic chief to quit amid corruption allegations scandal

Justin McCurry in Tokyo

Tue 19 Mar 2019 10.55 GMT

The president of the Japanese Olympic Committee (JOC) has said he will resign amid allegations of corruption over Tokyo’s successful bid to host the 2020 Games. Tsunekazu Takeda, 71, who will also step down from the International Olympic Committee, has denied allegations of corruption since the Guardian revealed in May 2016 that the Tokyo Olympic bid team had made payments to a consultancy linked to the son of a disgraced IOC official during the city’s successful bid.

Takeda was head of the Tokyo bidding committee when it was awarded the Games in 2013, defeating rival bids from Madrid and Istanbul.

The president said he would resign from both posts when his current term as JOC president ends in June. “I would like to leave the future of the JOC to a younger generation to lead up to Tokyo 2020,” he said during an executive board meeting on Tuesday.

Takeda, who is currently under investigation by French authorities for alleged bribery, has repeatedly denied the allegations.
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The French investigation centres on two payments, totalling at least $2m (£1.5m), that Tokyo’s bid committee made in July and October 2013 to Black Tidings, an account in Singapore linked to Papa Massata Diack – the son of the disgraced former world athletics chief Lamine Diack – and administered by Ian Tan Tong Han.

Some of the Tokyo bid team’s payments were suspected to have been directed towards the elder Diack, who as a powerful member of the IOC at the time had a vote in deciding the host city for the 2020 Games.
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