Olympic status quo: IOC directors earn more money than athletes, Olympic champions – and more than any IF

As a so-called non-profit organisation that generates billions in revenue in the USA with American sponsors, NBCUniversal and LA 2028 and enjoys tax privileges, the International Olympic Committee has to submit tax filings every year. This Form 990 is an information return that most organizations claiming federal tax-exempt status must file yearly with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

In the Form 990, the IOC administration must also provide information on the salaries, bonuses and other benefits for the executives. You will look in vain for such information in the IOC's annual financial reports – like many other fundamentally detailed figures that have never been published.

For example? In the annual reports …

• There is no detailed information on individual payments from all sponsors and other partners, only totals.
• There is no detailed information on individual payments by all TV rights holders, only totals.
• There are no details of individual payments made by the IOC to each National Olympic Committee, only totals.
• There is no detailed information on individual payments made by the IOC to all Olympic sport federations (IFs), only totals and, in minor cases, a small amount of information (e.g. on payments for guest Olympic sports).
• There is no detailed information on exact payments and services provided by the IOC and its partners to Olympic Organising Committees – only totals, which do not distinguish, for example, between cash payments and value in kind services.

You can read more about this here:

The list of all IOC payments for the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro and what it means for Tokyo

For the first time ever it can be revealed in detail how much cash the IOC paid to an Olympic host. Investigative journalist Jens Weinreich publishes the list of 117 payments to Rio 2016 in a worldwide exclusive in his magazine SPORT & POLITICS.

THE INQUISITORJens Weinreich

How dependent sports federations are on the Olympic revenues

Most of the international Olympic sports federations are financially heavily dependent on their share of the revenues from the Olympic Games. The IOC traditionally does not publish how it will distribute the revenues from the Olympic Games among the 28 permanent summer sports federations.

THE INQUISITORJens Weinreich

Last year, THE INQUISITOR already published the salaries of the IOC management team for 2021.

IOC directors earn more money than Olympic champions – and more than any single Olympic sport

It is one of the most intriguing questions about the dubious dictatorship of IOC President Thomas Bach: Why were the salaries of some IOC directors almost doubled in the middle of the COVID crisis? Why do his loyal servants earn more money from the IOC in one Olympiad than any Olympic IF?

THE INQUISITORJens Weinreich

In accordance with the information provided by the IOC in the IRS Form 990, we have included the total amount for each person at director level in the table below, which is made up of …

• base compensation
• bonus & incentive compensation
• other reportable compensation
• retirement and other deffered compensation
• non-taxable benefits

The questionable Olympic constant is that under the IOC deity Thomas Bach, the salaries of executives have risen exorbitantly. Why?

In the table, we have extrapolated the figures for 2022 to the Olympic cycle and thus calculated a probable total for 2021-2024.

We are talking about a sum of just under $50 million over the four-year period, which is likely to be significantly higher in the end, as significantly more is usually paid in the final Olympic year of the Summer Games. We won't know the actual total amount until the beginning of 2026.

Study the complete list for 2022, prepared for you in a table below.