Frank Deford takes a critical look at IOC President Juan
Antonio Samaranch in the latest installment of HBO's "Real
Sports." Deford reviews Samaranch's "iron grip on the Olympic
Games" and discusses rumors of corruption in the selection of
potential sites, including the "outright bribery" of IOC members.
Deford notes that Samaranch seeks to "stay above" such criticism
through his claim that the Games are a "sports TV show, somehow
imbued with spiritual properties that make it a movement ... with
the same sort of pious imagery that is usually applied to
religion." Samaranch: "We are more important than the Catholic
religion." Deford, asked later by Bryant Gumbel how Samaranch
dominates the IOC with little opposition: "There are no checks
whatsoever. It would be as if the President of General Motors
had no board whatsoever to look over him." Deford also
interviewed British journalist Andrew Jennings, who asserts that
Samaranch was a devoted Fascist under Spanish dictator Francisco
Franco and that he has turned the IOC into a "clone of the Franco
regime." Jennings: "It's just like a dictatorship. One man at
the top, with unrivaled power, nobody is elected to the body, he
selects everyone, he controls everything" (HBO, 7/15). The
ATLANTA CONSTITUTION picks up portions of Deford's piece for an
IOC profile, headlined: "Scoundrels or Statesmen: Who are the
Guardians of the Games?" (ATLANTA CONSTITUTION, 7/16).
