The head of the Istanbul 2020 Olympic bid that lost out to Tokyo has said that the Games may have to be staged in London if a criminal investigation concludes that the Japanese made illegal payments.
Yesterday the French financial prosecutor confirmed that they have launched an inquiry into two payments from a Japanese bank account called ‘Tokyo 2020 Olympic Game Bid’ to the Singapore-based Black Tidings company already suspected by French investigators of laundering money extorted from drug cheats in athletics.
Yesterday Yalcin Aksoy, the deputy secretary general of the Turkish Olympic Committee who served as the general director of the Istanbul Olympic Bidding Committee, stressed that the allegations are so far unproven.
But he said if Tokyo end up being stripped of the Games it would have to be handed back to London because it would be too late for Istanbul or Madrid to build the venues.
‘The only city that could do it, if it is the case (that Tokyo has made these payments), would be to take it to London,’ Aksoy told Sportsmail. ‘I hope it doesn’t come to that.’
Sportsmail revealed yesterday that two payments were made either side of the 2020 Games vote in Buenos Aires in 2013 into the company that has direct links to Papa Massata Diack, the son of former IAAF president Lamine Diack and someone who, along with his father, is the subject of a criminal investigation by the French authorities.
Yesterday the Parquet National Financial, the French financial prosecutor, released details of the evidence they have acquired as part of their wider investigation into the corruption scandal in athletics.
A statement said: ‘In December 2015, the national financial parquet (PNF) was informed of two financial movements which intervened in the months of July and October 2013, totalling 2.8 million Singapore dollars, under the title “Tokyo 2020 Olympic Game Bid” from an account at a Japanese bank for the benefit of society “Black Tidings” in Singapore.’
The vote that was staged at the 125th International Olympic Committee session in Argentina on September 7, 2013 resulted in the Japanese beating Istanbul by 60 to 36 in the final round of voting after Madrid had been eliminated in a first-round ballot.
It is understood Papa Massata Diack denies being linked to the two alleged payments from Tokyo, while a statement from the Tokyo Organising Committee to Sportsmail also denied any knowledge of such transactions. – Daily Mail