Алистер Смит - The Dictator's Handbook - Why Bad Behavior is Almost Always Good Politics

The scandalous corruption that seemed to accompany almost all business aspects of the Olympics appeared finally to come to a head with Salt Lake City. The negative publicity surrounding the corruption scandal did inspire the IOC to promise reforms and to place restrictions on gifts, luxury travel, and perks in bidding cities. But as the dictates of political survival leads us to expect, this was unlikely to last since the Olympic organizations are all small-coalition operations. In fact, an undercover investigation by the BBC’s news program Panorama suggests bribery is still active. In the runup to the announcement of the location of the 2012 games, secretly taped meetings suggest a price on the order of around $100,000–$200,000 per IOC vote.11 Distressing to sports lovers to be sure, but this is no surprise to anyone who thinks about political survival.

That the IOC is plagued by bribery and corruption allegations is exactly what we should expect when we explore its institutional structure. The IOC, created in 1894, runs all aspects of the modern Olympics. The IOC is composed of only up to 115 members drawn from current athletes (up to fifteen), members of international sporting federations (IFs) (up to fifteen), senior members of National Olympic Committees (NOCs) (up to fifteen), and up to seventy unaffiliated members. IOC members are selected and voted in by existing IOC members. The IOC is responsible for selecting the senior Olympic executives and executive committees, regulating IFs and NOCs, and selecting the site of future games.

Fifty-eight votes are all that are needed to guarantee someone’s election to become IOC president or host the games. Not surprisingly, IOC presidents keep their jobs for a long time and maintain lavish expense accounts. Since 1896, the date of the first modern Olympic games, there have been only seven presidents. In practice, often even fewer than fifty-eight votes are required because not all 115 positions on the IOC are filled and representatives are ineligible to vote on motions involving their home nation. For instance, London’s bid for the 2012 games beat out Paris by fifty-four votes to fifty. At the level of Panorama ’s estimates it costs less than $10 million to win. While this is a substantial sum of money, it is insignificant when compared to the IOC revenues (nearly $5.5 billion for 2005–2008, the period covering the Beijing games) and the estimated 9.3 billion (approximately $15 billion) Britain will spend on venues and infrastructure for the 2012 games.12 Building better stadiums, which benefits the whole Olympic movement—athletes, officials, and audiences alike—is a much more expensive way to buy support than doling out $10 million in private gains to a select few.

The design of the IOC lies at the heart of the scandals it faces. When fifty-eight votes guarantee victory, and the IOC president can handpick IOC members, politics and control will always revolve around corruption and bribery. As long as the IOC’s institutions remain as they are, vote buying and graft will persist because it is the “right” strategy for any IOC president who wants to survive. Regulating “gifts” and travel cannot change the underlying incentives to compete on the basis of private rewards rather than better management and facilities for the games.

When billions of dollars are at stake and winning requires the support of a mere 58 people, any nation that relies solely on the quality of its sporting bid will be a loser. Salt Lake learned this lesson bidding for the 1998 winter games. It was an error they did not repeat for the 2002 games, although they got caught in the process. Many in Salt Lake may have feigned outrage, but many might also have been glad. After all, in spite of the subsequent allegations, the games were not reassigned.

The IOC is not alone in engendering corruption. FIFA, soccer’s international governing body, is even worse. On December 1, 2010, FIFA announced that it had chosen Russia and Qatar as the sites for the 2018 and 2022 World Cup Finals. Russia beat out bids from other European rivals, including England, a joint bid by Belgium and the Netherlands, and a joint bid from the Iberian Peninsula. While there were many attractive features to Russia’s bid, it is becoming increasingly difficult to understand Qatar being chosen over Australia, Japan, South Korea, and the United States.

Qatar, a tiny state in the Persian Gulf, has the world’s third largest known gas reserves and possibly the highest per capita income in the world. However, as a site for a soccer tournament it is problematic. Sharia forms the basis of its legal code. Alcohol consumption is harshly punished, homosexuality is banned, and Sepp Blatter, FIFA president, has already been condemned for making insensitive remarks on this topic. Beyond these concerns, the weather remains the most serious impediment to Qatar’s sponsorship. It is so hot and humid that many Qatar’s residents even leave for the summer months. To make it possible for the players to compete, Qatar’s bid entailed constructing specially built, fully air-conditioned stadiums. FIFA is now contemplating moving the tournament from its traditional June and July dates to the winter months, when the temperature is much cooler. This would severely disrupt domestic competition in the European football leagues, where many of the world’s top players ply their trade. Needless to say, it is hard to rationalize having this debate after the vote rather than before if the objective was to do what is best for soccer/football.

Since just twenty-four members of FIFA’s executive committee determine the location of the finals, the winner requires the support of only thirteen members—if that. For the December 2010 vote only twelve votes were required after two members were suspended for allegedly trying to sell their votes. One of these members, Amos Adamu, was caught asking for an $800,000 bribe in a sting operation by the Sunday Times newspaper. While the money was nominally for building artificial pitches, the deal required that the $800,000 be paid directly to him. Three days prior to the location vote the BBC’s Panorama once again exercised its penchant for unearthing corruption in sports by airing a documentary entitled FIFA’s Dirty Secret , which detailed bribery and corruption among a number of senior FIFA officials. It is thought this severely harmed England’s bid to host the 2018 finals, since three of the officials accused were among the twenty-two executive committee voters. Perhaps the fact that the backers of England’s bids, including British prime minister David Cameron, immediately expressed full confidence in the fidelity of the accused FIFA officials is a telling sign that bribery is the modus operandi at FIFA. Why call for an investigation, after all, when it could only imperil England’s future prospects?

Fortunately, devising reforms that would promote sport and competition over bribery and corruption is straightforward, and a comparison of bribery at the two institutions shows why. To buy the Olympics takes approximately four times as many votes as to buy the World Cup, fifty-eight versus thirteen. And, if the details of alleged corruption are to be believed, the size of bribes is substantially smaller, $100,000–$200,000 per vote versus $800,000. This is a direct illustration of the role of institutions in action, and it makes the solution clear.

As the number of supporters needed increases, private goods become less important. Bribery could easily be made a thing of the past by simply expanding the IOC. For instance, all Olympians might be made IOC members eligible to vote for the executive officers and the site of future games. There were nearly 11,000 athletes at the Beijing summer games and over 2,500 at the Vancouver games. Alternatively, medalists, or to prevent overrepresentation of team sports, one representative per medal, could become IOC members. Either way, within a few years the body of the IOC would swell, and officials and bidding cities would have to compete on the quality of leadership, games, and facilities rather than on lavish travel trips. (Alastair laments that fixing the English football team poses a far greater challenge.)