Japan's Olympic chief insisted $2 million in payments were "legitimate" on Friday after French prosecutors launched a probe, suspecting they were aimed at winning support for Tokyo's successful bid to host the 2020 Games. Japanese Olympic Committee president Tsunakazu Takeda, who led Tokyo's bid, said the payments were for consulting work and did not raise suspicions among the campaign team at the time.
"We would like to reaffirm that the Olympic Games 2020 were awarded to Tokyo as the result of a fair competition and as a result of the contents of our bid," Takeda said in a statement. "The payments mentioned in the media were a legitimate consultant's fee." The payments to a bank account in Singapore were first revealed by Britain's Guardian newspaper, and prompted French prosecutors to launch a probe on Thursday. Sources told AFP that investigators suspected the money was aimed at helping Tokyo secure the 2020 Games.
It follows earlier controversies surrounding the Tokyo Olympics, which had to scrap its original main stadium design due to its eye-watering price tag, and had to weather plagiarism accusations over the Games logo. Some 2.8 million Singapore dollars (1.8 million euros, $2 million) were paid to a company owned by a son of disgraced former world athletics chief Lamine Diack, French prosecutors said on Thursday. Diack was an International Olympic Committee member in 2013 when Tokyo beat Istanbul and Madrid in the race to host the 2020 Games. Diack and his son already face corruption charges in France.
But Takeda said the money was for "professional services" for consultation work including "the planning of the bid, tutoring on presentation practice, advice for international lobbying communications and service for information and media analysis". "All these services were properly contracted using accepted business practices," said Takeda. "Furthermore, the amounts paid were in our opinion proper and adequate for the services provided and gave no cause for suspicion at the time."