Bid team scrap pledges

Disappointed: Lord Coe

14 April 2012

London's Olympic bid leaders have scrapped plans for a second programme of incentives and sweeteners following the controversy over a £15million package for athletes and sports federations.

Lord Coe and his team were preparing to unveil a new programme of pledges, this time for the International Olympic Committee's blue chip sponsors such as McDonald's, Coca-Cola and Visa.

The exact details of the package were still being finalised but have now been ruled out after the IOC forced London to withdraw offers to pay every competitor's air travel, subsidise foreign team's training bases and provide free accommodation for officials in the year leading up to the 2012 Games.

The embarrassing climb-down came after IOC president Jacques Rogge ordered an investigation into the sweeteners. Although London has not yet been formally cleared of breaking the bidding rules, they are unlikely to face any sanctions.

Coe said he was confident no terminal harm had been caused to London's chances, although the gaffe is a blow to its chances of catching favourite Paris in the vote in Singapore on 6 July.

He said: "Jacques Rogge made comments about not wanting this to become a bidding war and we have withdrawn the offers we made.

"I made the judgement on mature reflection that if the president of the IOC says he does not want a bidding war, then it would be rather foolhardy of me as chairman of our bid not to respond to that. I want this to be a campaign that is building momentum. I don't want to be deflected."

Rogge is determined that the IOC will not return to the days of the biggest corruption scandal in its history in 1999, when 10 members were forced out of the organisation for accepting gifts and favours from Salt Lake City when it was bidding for the 2002 Winter Games.

The IOC president was determined to take action against the initiatives, even though the Ethics Commission chief, Paquerette Girard-Zapelli, did not initially feel they were against the rules. Rogge warned London and bid rivals New York, Paris, Madrid and Moscow that they were banned from introducing any new ideas that were not in the "bid books", which were handed into the IOC in November.

This is going to make London's public relations campaign much harder in the 10 weeks before the vote.

One leading Olympic expert admitted today: "London knows it cannot win if it doesn't make any moves in a bid to be a bit different and special. This will cramp its style a bit."

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