Oct 5, 2009 10:44 pm US/Central
Did Chicago Get Out-Dealed In Copenhagen?
Tokyo Charges There Were Back-Room Agreements Made, Paving The Way For Rio To Get The 2016 Games
CHICAGO (CBS) ―
There are new charges tonight about how Rio de Janeiro got the 2016 Summer Olympic Games. There were alleged backroom deals swapping International Olympic Committee votes for fighter jets.
CBS 2 Chief Correspondent Jay Levine reports.
The charges are from an unlikely source, Tokyo, which actually lasted a round longer than Chicago did.
But they're helping to explain, with help from our sources, what happened and why and how our partners in the bid, let us down.
"Why was Chicago knocked out in the first round?" asks Mark Ganis, the sports marketing expert from Sportcorp. "Why that kick in the gut that we all felt that day? That was a reflection of not being able to count heads properly."
Tokyo's Governor charged Brazil's President Lula made "ambitious promises to African people," while French President Sarkozy pledged to back Rio if Brazil bought French-made fighter jets.
It's a charge international relations expert Paul O'Connor doesn't take lightly.
"The Japanese are very circumspect they don't openly say those kind of things," he said.
Sources say Chicago's leaders believed they had 32 votes promised for the first round. They got 18. Why the horrible miscalculation?
Ganis says: "That was a failing of intelligence. I put that squarely on the shoulders of the United States Olympic Committee."
"From day one, they couldn't shoot straight," he added. "Not only that -- they kept switching who the rifleman was, and neither of them could shoot."
The outcome was a concern of e-mailer Mike Hussey, who wrote Levine: "I think the USA should boycott the Olympics and withdraw any and all support for it … It's a slap in the face for the USA."
It's especially a slap when U.S. companies like Coca Cola, VISA, and McDonalds pay the IOC's bills with huge sponsorship fees.
Oak Brook-based McDonalds is in a tricky spot. Its billion-dollar deal with the Olympics runs out just before the 2016 games.
Levine asked if the treatment of Chicago by the IOC would affect future deals. In a less than resounding vote of confidence, the chief marketing officer of McDonalds replied: "It's too soon to speculate."
"I think they do have a responsibility to react," Ganis said. "They could use their relationship to go to the IOC to say, 'Look this really was bad for us.'"
McDonalds has been an Olympic sponsor for more than three decades. The other American sponsors didn't return calls for comment.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
Jewish Celebrities
Click to enlarge
Stumble It!
Reporting
