French authorities search Paris 2024 organizing committee headquarters in corruption probe
French law enforcement authorities searched Paris 2024 headquarters Tuesday in connection with two separate corrupton investigations ahead of next summer's Olympic Games.
An official with the financial prosecutor's office in France confirmed to Paste BN Sports that searches were underway at multiple locations Tuesday morning, including the Olympic organizing committee's headquarters in a suburb of Paris. The raids are part of preliminary investigations into allegations of favoritism and conflicts of interest leading up to the Games, which will begin a little more than one year from now on July 26, 2024.
The organizing commitee said in a statement that it has "adopted stringent procedures, and has set up an ethics committee together with an audit committee to supervise its activities."
"Paris 2024 is cooperating actively with investigators to facilitate their enquiries and provide answers to all the questions raised as quickly as possible," it said in part of the statement.
According to the financial prosecutor's office, the first probe pertains to the alleged embezzlement of public funds, as well and favoritism and concealment of favoritism regarding an unspecified contract or contracts awarded by Paris orgnizers. That investigation began in 2017, the same year that the International Olympic Committee awarded the 2024 Summer Olympics to Paris.
The second probe was opened last year following an audit by France's anti-corruption agency, according to the prosecutor's office. In addition to Paris 2024, it has targeted Solideo, the public entity in charge of facilities for the Games. Solideo's offices were also searched Tuesday, the prosecutor's office confirmed.
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French newspaper Le Monde reported that several other companies and consultants involved with the organization of the 2024 Olympics were searched as well, though it did not identify them.
The overall budget for the Paris Games is about $8.2 billion, according to The Associated Press.
The searches came at a slightly uncomfortable time for the IOC, whose executive board had just opened two days of meetings in Lausanne, Switzerland earlier in the morning.
In a news conference later Tuesday, Christophe Dubi, the IOC's executive director overseeing the Olympic Games, offered few comments on the corruption investigations, instead referring reporters to Paris 2024's statement. He said the executive board did, however, spend part of its meeting discussing the organizing committee's "major successes" to date, including an "amazingly successful" ticketing operation and a number of recently-finalized sponsorship deals.
With Tuesday's news, Paris 2024 joins the previous two Summer Olympics − hosted by Rio de Janeiro in 2016 and Tokyo in 2021 − in being implicated in a corruption probe or scandal. There were allegations of vote-buying in the 2016 Games, with a Brazilian politician later admitting he paid about $2 million for several IOC members to cast votes in favor of holding the Olympics in Rio. The Tokyo Olympics, meanwhile, have been mired in corruption allegations surrounding top sponsors, including Japanese marketing giant Dentsu.
Contributing: The Associated Press
Contact Tom Schad at tschad@usatoday.com or on Twitter @Tom_Schad.