IOC marketing chair from Japan investigated for corruption

PARIS — International Olympic Committee marketing chair Tsunekazu Takeda is being investigated for suspected corruption related to the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, France’s financial crimes office said Friday.

The National Financial Prosecutors office said Takeda, who is also the president of the Japanese Olympic Committee, was placed under formal investigation for “active corruption” on Dec. 10.

French investigators are in the midst of a years-long and wide-ranging probe into sports corruption that is looking, among other things, at the bidding contests for the 2020 Olympics and other major sports events.

Takeda’s career in Olympic circles has ticked almost every box, starting with representing Japan in equestrian at the 1972 Munich Games and 1976 Montreal Games.

As the head of the IOC’s marketing commission since 2014, Takeda has overseen signing sponsor deals worth hundreds of millions of dollars, including new partnerships with Alibaba, Intel and Allianz.

The IOC ethics commission is scheduled to meet Friday in Lausanne, Switzerland. Takeda could be provisionally suspended from Olympic duty, or offer to step aside during the investigation.

“The IOC ethics commission has opened a file and will continue to monitor the situation,” the IOC said in a statement. “Mr. Takeda continues to enjoy the full presumption of innocence.”

The preliminary charge of active corruption filed against Takeda was first reported Friday by French newspaper Le Monde. The preliminary charge means the investigating magistrate has determined that there are serious grounds for suspicion but has not yet ruled on whether to pursue a prosecution.

Le Monde said the magistrate overseeing the probe, Renaud Van Ruymbeke, suspects the IOC vote for Tokyo in 2013 was swayed by secret deals that secured the backing of IOC members from Africa for the Japanese capital.

Le Monde reported that French investigators suspect Takeda of authorizing the payment of bribes. French financial prosecutors are looking at two payments, totalling 1.8 million euros ($2 million), made on either side of the IOC vote in September 2013 to a Singapore company, Black Tidings, Le Monde said.

French prosecutors have linked Black Tidings to Papa Massata Diack, one of the sons of Lamine Diack, the former head of track and field’s governing body.

Lamine Diack also is under investigation in France on corruption-related charges.

The Japanese Olympic Committee said it has conducted its own internal investigation and found no illegality involved in all payments made by the Japanese bid committee at the time.

Japanese broadcaster NHK quoted Takeda as saying that he provided the findings of the JOC probe to the French investigators.

In Takeda’s Olympic career, he has led a national Olympic committee, been a vice-president of sport’s governing body, a chef de mission for Olympic teams, a sports director for a Winter Olympics — Nagano in 1998 — a Summer Games bid leader, an IOC member since 2012 and now chair of one of the most financially significant IOC panels.

Takeda also works closely with Sheikh Ahmad of Kuwait, the influential IOC member who has stepped aside from the IOC while awaiting trial in Geneva this year in a fraud case unrelated to Olympic business. Takeda is a board member of the global group of Olympic committees, known as ANOC, and the Olympic Council of Asia, both led by the Kuwaiti sheikh.

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AP Sports Writer Graham Dunbar in Geneva and Associated Press writer Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo contributed to this report.

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John Leicester, The Associated Press