IOC administration: ‘The whole place is rotten to the core’
IOC employees describe a culture of fear not only in the offices in Lausanne. The situation in Madrid, where a quarter of the IOC workforce is based, is also described as toxic in some departments. The incidents and the way in which management deals with them reveal a worrying Olympic pattern.
My very best regards to the many new readers of this newsletter! These three articles have triggered an astonishing response in recent days and have been studied closely, particularly at the IOC, in the executive suites of Olympic federations and institutions and within the IOC administration:
Jens Weinreich
Jens Weinreich
Jens Weinreich
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In yesterday's article about questionable events surrounding IOC director Marie Sallois, who has been the subject of an internal investigation, and a ‘cultural pattern of fear and retaliation’, I mentioned a few departments and directorates where similar problems have been reported. Let me put it this way: that was a highly incomplete list. This will be reported and discussed in detail over the next weeks and months.
Today, one day before the IOC Executive Board meeting at the Olympic Family Hotel (OFH) The Westin Palace in Milano, let's take a brief look at the IOC Group's second major location: Madrid, home to Olympic Broadcasting Services (OBS) and Olympic Channel Services (OCS).
In the coming weeks, OBS and OCS will once again play a central role in marketing and promoting the IOC Group's core product, the Olympic Games. OBS will produce the images for the Olympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026. In total, including contracted staff, thousands of OBS and OCS employees will market the IOC's core product across various channels.
One person who plays a leading role in this has been the subject of internal criticism for years. The allegations involve bullying, a climate of fear, intimidation and threats, imposture, potential falsification in many respects… and employees who have been protesting in vain, over the course of an entire Olympic Games.
An Olympiad of despair.
And once again, it's about a person who has astonishing – or should we say suspicious – support at the highest levels of the IOC Group, in Lausanne and Madrid.
‘The whole place is rotten to the core,’ says one person involved. This exactly reflects the assessments from Lausanne, where there is talk of a deeply rooted culture of fear.
The patterns in Madrid and Lausanne are not only similar, they seem to be almost identical:
