The International Olympic Committee on Tuesday cleared Brazil’s suspended Olympic body to participate in upcoming events but affirmed that a broader ban imposed amid a corruption scandal remains in force.
“The Brazilian Olympic Committee (BOC)... will be allowed to exercise its membership rights in National Olympic Committee (NOC) associations again”, the IOC said in a statement. The move will allow Brazilian officials take part in two meetings scheduled to take place in Prague this week.
The IOC provisionally suspended the BOC on October 6 following the arrest of its chief Carlos Nuzman in a $2 million (1.7 million euros) vote—buying scandal. Nuzman has been accused of making payoffs ahead of the 2009 vote that awarded Rio the 2016 Games.
The IOC’s executive committee said Brazilian Olympic officials have “been fully cooperative” over the past three weeks, including by sidelining Nuzman and installing his deputy Paulo Wanderley Teixeira as an interim successor.
The Brazilians have also launched an internal audit which so far has not found any connection between Nuzman’s alleged crimes and the national Olympic committee’s accounts, the IOC said.
The audit, along with a broader BOC internal review, is ongoing, the IOC statement further said.
“There will be no decision about the final lifting of the provisional suspension of the (BOC) by the IOC until this process is finished,” it added.
In the meantime, Brazil can join meetings of the Association of National Olympic Committees and of the Pan American Sports Organizations at an ANOC general assembly which opens on Thursday.
Rio 2016 was credited with being a sporting and organisational success, but revelations of massive corruption during the preparations and now even in the awarding of the Games have tarnished the legacy
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