Record salaries: IOC directors receive more money than all Olympic champions and the best compensated Olympic federations
Read the figures for the 2021–2024 Olympic cycle: more than $55 million was paid to IOC directors – much more than the top-tier Olympic federations (World Athletics & Co) receive from the IOC revenue. The total amount is significantly higher, as some salaries are kept secret.
I wish you a healthy and successful 2026. The winter break is over, some topics have been prepared and researched – let's get started! You can look forward to lots of exclusive background information in this theatre.
So let's talk about money: now that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has filed its tax return in the USA in order to continue enjoying various tax breaks there, the development of salaries for the most important IOC employees in the past Olympic cycle can be documented with a reasonable degree of reliability.
I have compiled the payments to IOC directors in table form and will take this opportunity to provide an overview of some personnel changes at board level since President Kirsty Coventry took over the reins from her protector Thomas Bach.
Compared to the projections based on data from previous years, in the 2021–2024 cycle IOC directors have cashed several million more. Not only were around two dozen people paid minimum $50 million, as predicted, but more than $55 million. Probably even around $65 million.
The frontrunner is Director General Christophe De Kepper, with a total of 6.3 million dollars appearing on IOC's US tax documents.
Every person at director level is a millionaire in terms of income, extrapolated over an entire Olympic cycle.
Most receive several million. There is no salary cap in the IOC. Under president Thomas Bach, salaries have exploded and, in several cases, multiplied.
- This means that the few IOC directors receive much more money in an Olympiad than those Olympic federations (IFs) that are classified in the highest categories among summer and winter federations.
Roughly speaking, even though the distribution principles are different, in the 2021–2024 Olympiad, around $40 million went to World Athletics, World Aquatics, World Gymnastics (formerly known as FIG), the International Ski and Snowboard Federation (FIS), the International Skating Union (ISU) and the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF). In the lowest categories, Olympic IFs received only between $13-15 million. Some that played a guest role at the Olympics (Tokyo 202one) received no royalties at all.
Needless to say, there are no direct distributions to athletes.
The documented $55 million is not the whole story. In fact, it is significantly more: an estimated $65 million, considering that the data for some highly paid individuals from the IOC corporate structure does not appear in the US tax return at all:
