Forum Post: The Olympics = The 99% enriching the 1%. The IOC is more corrupt than the Nigerian government.

(1) A Reminder That Everything About The Olympics Is Always Corrupt

http://deadspin.com/5919183/a-reminder-that-everything-about-the-olympics-is-always-corrupt

The best sportsmen, sportswomen, and sportschildren in the world, all conveniently paid in "glory" and "pride" instead of money. And the Games make money, plenty of it. But a host city has never once shown a profit. So in the end, the world's various Olympic committees exist only to enrich members of the world's various Olympic committees.

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(2) Olympic Officials 'Linked To Ticket Corruption'

http://news.sky.com/story/949583/olympic-officials-linked-to-ticket-corruption

Foreign Olympic officials and agents have been caught trying to sell thousands of London 2012 tickets on the black market for up to 10 times their value, it has been claimed. The corruption is widespread, according to a newspaper report, which accuses officials who control tickets for up to 54 countries of selling them to the highest bidder.

The Olympic ticket black market is thriving. Though face value for tickets is capped (at £2,012; cute), the open market's willing to pay much more. But since the tickets are distributed via official ticket sellers from each of the IOC nations, it's those authorized ticket reps who are doing the scalping. And the Times caught 27 different reps offering to sell undercover reporters premium tickets for up to $9,400 a pop.

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(3) Ticket monopoly brings one man big profit

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/olympics/2010280290_olytickets16.html

Working behind the scenes for 25 years, Sead Dizdarevic [founder of CoSport.com and JetSetSports.com] has used his powerful personal connections with the Olympic elite to gain a monopoly on Olympic ticket and travel-package sales in North America, Europe, Australia and other places around the globe.

Dizdarevic was forced into the spotlight during the largest scandal in modern Olympic history: accusations that officials in Salt Lake City used $1 million in cash and favors to sway the votes of IOC members, who selected the city for the 2002 Winter Games.

In 1994, the year before Salt Lake City won the Games, two top officials of the local bid committee, David Johnson and Thomas Welch, asked Dizdarevic for contributions, court records show. Soon, Dizdarevic began a series of cash withdrawals from his bank accounts, always in amounts less than $10,000, which wouldn't trigger disclosure to the Internal Revenue Service. He stacked the cash in his safe until time came to deliver it.