Yoshiro Mori was taken to the Olympic ring – Newspaper Kommersant No. 161 (7362) from 09/02/2022

A high-profile corruption scandal centered on the organizing committee of the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo has developed. A new defendant in the case of transferring a series of bribes to members of the structure for granting the status of an Olympic sponsor by the major Japanese clothing brand Aoki Holdings is the former head of the organizing committee, Yoshiro Mori, who previously served as the country’s prime minister. He is accused of receiving 2 million yen for this. In August, Tokyo prosecutors arrested another organizing committee member, Haruyuki Takahashi, in connection with the case.

The fact that the former head of the organizing committee of the Tokyo Olympics, Yoshiro Mori suspected in accepting a 2 million yen ($15,000) bribe from Aoki Holdings, the agency said on Thursday Kyodo. For this money, the 85-year-old heavyweight functionary allegedly helped the menswear brand get into the number of official sponsors of the Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games. This allowed Aoki Holdings to receive an extensive list of preferences, including the right to use Olympic symbols “for business purposes”, as well as a contract for the production of official suits for athletes, members of the organizing committee and judges’ uniforms.

The story with Mr. Mori is a new round of the corruption scandal that broke out this summer. Less than a month ago, Tokyo prosecutors detained another member of the Olympic Organizing Committee, Haruyuki Takahashi, in this case. From the same company Aoki Holdings, he allegedly received more than 50 bribes in the period from October to March this year, totaling 51 million yen ($380,000). According to the contract concluded back in 2017, the brand transferred money not personally to Mr. Takahashi, but to his firm specializing in the provision of consulting services.

While the series of these money transfers may not look suspicious in itself, another important circumstance gives it a criminal connotation. A functionary who was a member of the Olympic Organizing Committee was considered a civil servant and, in accordance with Japanese law, could not receive any payments or gifts.

This Olympics, which due to the coronavirus pandemic was moved from the summer of 2020 to the summer of 2021, significantly damaged the reputation of both Japanese officials. Mr. Mori, who at the beginning of the century worked as the Prime Minister of Japan, joined the Tokyo bid committee in 2011, and after winning the capital elections (they were held in 2013, Tokyo was ahead of Istanbul and Madrid) was elected to the post of head of the Tokyo organizing committee -2020. Reuters sources have repeatedly noted that 85-year-old Yoshiro Mori enjoyed strong support both in the government of the country and in the International Olympic Committee (IOC), and was also considered one of the key figures capable of ensuring the success of the Olympics.

But even before the start of the tournament, Mr. Mori managed to become the protagonist of several ridiculous scandals. In 2020 Reuters reported that the non-profit organization run by Yoshiro Mori received more than $1 million from the bid committee.

The incident was hushed up: the little-known company soon ceased to exist, and the functionary said that he was not aware of the financial transactions it carried out.

Before the start of the Games, Mr. Mori still did not finish it, but for a different reason. At a media-open meeting of the Japanese National Olympic Committee (JOC) in February 2021, the idea of ​​increasing the number of women on the board of the structure to 40% was discussed. But Yoshiro Mori did not appreciate the idea. He began to talk about the fact that women were “excessively talkative” and for this reason the meetings would be very protracted. Because of his sexist statements, the Japanese was sharply criticized and then forced to resign.

left the Tokyo Olympics trace and in the biography of 78-year-old Haruyuki Takahashi. According to the same investigation, Reuters found that the bid committee transferred a significant amount of $ 8.2 million to Mr. Takahashi for certain services.

Haruyuki Takahashi, who received an important position on the organizing committee after Tokyo’s victory, explained that the services consisted in “lobbying” the Tokyo bid in the international sports community, in particular the IOC, which chooses the hosts of the Olympics. Among the targets of his lobbying work was the late IOC member Lamine Diack, to whom he gave gifts such as video cameras and Seiko watches. Later, French prosecutors found that the bid committee, through an intermediary, a Singapore consulting company, paid Lamine Diack $2.3 million to ensure victory in the election of the Olympic capital, and charged the head of the bid committee and former president of the Japanese Olympic Committee, Tsunekazu Takeda. He resigned in the wake of the scandal.

Ekaterina Remizova