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Roundup: Olympic committee spending scandal undermines image of sports in Finland

Xinhua, June 9, 2016 Adjust font size:

While Finland usually boasts good ethics in public service and lack of corruption, a recent revelation about the lavish spending of public funds by the Finnish National Olympic Committee (NOC) denotes an exception.

While an investigation by the Chancellor of Justice Office is still ongoing, an internal report by ministry of education inspectors into the operations of the NOC said there had been a lack of control.

Inspectors found out that salary levels in the NOC had exceeded government limits, spending on alcohol during negotiations had been high, and some costs had been reported twice.

Meanwhile, tenders had not been requested in major procurements and services had been purchased from companies that employed former top executives of sports organizations.

Several investigations are under way or have already completed. Investigators' general belief is the sports organizations enjoyed a cozy relationship with the ministry of education sports officials.

Education and culture minister Sanni Grahn-Laasonen said the ministry did not ask for a police investigation because the internal probe was not "yet complete."

Meanwhile, local media reported that the head of the ministry of sports department had urged his staff to find faults in the investigators' report on the NOC, but officials had not done so.

The inspectors suggested the NOC should return 1.3 million euros (1.47 million U.S. dollars) to the government, but the ministry reduced the amount to 400,000 to "avoid the committee ending up in financial difficulties."

The Finnish National Olympic Committee is technically a non-governmental civic organization. Much of the public funding for major sports organizations comes from the profits of the national lottery system and is distributed by the ministry of education.

The series of investigations started when a former ministry of education official took the role of whistleblower last November. He claimed to the Chancellor of Justice the system of public assistance for sports did not meet either good governance requirements or the law.

However, the NOC has denied the accusations. While it said it would "take the findings as a lesson" it said the inspectors had not understood the "nature of the work of the committee and its needs."

The NOC has expressed concern about what it described as "the autonomy of sports" if the financial structures are now changed. But sports writer Tero Hakola of Helsingin Sanomat noted recently that the NOC had actually "made use of the autonomy" in a cold-blooded way.

Commenting on the situation, the Oulu-based newspaper Kaleva said ordinary sports clubs operated mostly in frugal economic conditions. Much of the grassroots-level revenue of sports clubs comes from voluntary work.

The paper expressed the wish that "the questionable culture uncovered now at the top echelons of sports" would not undermine the support base of Finnish sports. Endit