International Olympic Comm- ittee (IOC) vice president Kim Un-yong voluntarily turned himself over to prosecutors for questioning in Seoul yesterday following corruption alleg-ations, officials said.
Kim, one of South Korea's most influential sports leaders, presented a written statement to the Seoul district prosecutors office before being turned away to be summoned at a later date, they said.
"He returned home because he has yet to be officially summoned," a prosecution source said.
"Prosecutors later issued a summons for Kim, who was asked to appear at the office by 10:00am on December 29," the source added.
The 72-year-old IOC official denied Monday that he was involved in corruption after pro-secutors arrested a former sports official accused of bribing him.
In a statement to the public, Kim said he was ready for investigation by prosecutors and denounced local media reports which described him as "a corrupt figure."
Last week, prosecutors arrested Lee Kwang-tae, a former Korea Olympic Committee (KOC) member who was in office from November 2000 to July last year, for alleged corruption.
Prosecutors refused to confirm Lee's charges, but Yonhap news agency said Lee is suspected of providing 100 million won (US$84,170) to Kim to help win his KOC membership.
The arrest came after investigators raided Kim's home and office and seized a safe and documents.
Kim, also head of the World Taekwondo Federation, was one of several IOC members implicated in a corruption investigation surrounding last year's Salt Lake City Winter Olympics.
Kim's 40-year-old son, John Kim, was freed by a court in Bulgaria early this month after US authorities dropped their extradition demand on graft charges related to the Salt Lake City Olympics.
The son was arrested in Sofia six months ago on an Interpol warrant issued by the US Justice Department investigating allegations that he was helped by the creation of a phoney job to gain a green card that allowed him to work and live in the US.
The case unravelled earlier this month when a US court cleared Salt Lake City Olympic bid leaders Tom Welch and Dave Johnson of bribing IOC members by offering them free gifts, study grants and employment to family members.
Kim was also under fire at home for allegedly putting personal ambition ahead of South Korea's bid to host the 2010 Winter Olympics at the winter sports center of Pyeongchang.
Pyeongchang lost the right to stage the Olympics to Vancouver in a close race in July, sparking criticism that Kim lobbied against his own country to boost his chances of election as an IOC vice president.
Kim rejected the charges and filed damage suits against Pyeongchang bid committee officials and others.
RECORD DEFEAT: The Shanghai-based ‘Oriental Sports Daily’ said the drubbing was so disastrous, and taste so bitter, that all that is left is ‘numbness’ Chinese soccer fans and media rounded on the national team yesterday after they experienced fresh humiliation in a 7-0 thrashing to rivals Japan in their opening Group C match in the third phase of Asian qualifying for the 2026 World Cup. The humiliation in Saitama on Thursday against Asia’s top-ranked team was China’s worst defeat in World Cup qualifying and only a goal short of their record 8-0 loss to Brazil in 2012. Chinese President Xi Jinping once said he wanted China to host and even win the World Cup one day, but that ambition looked further away than ever after a
Crowds descended on the home of 17-year-old Chinese diver Quan Hongchan after she won two golds at the Paris Olympics while gymnast Zhang Boheng hid in a Beijing airport toilet to escape overzealous throngs of fans. They are just two recent examples of what state media are calling “toxic fandom” and Chinese authorities have vowed to crack down on it. Some of the adulation toward China’s sports stars has been more sinister — fans obsessing over athletes’ personal lives, cyberbullying opponents or slamming supposedly crooked judges. Experts say it mirrors the kind of behavior once reserved for entertainment celebrities before
‘KHELIFMANIA’: In the weeks since the Algerian boxer won gold in Paris, national enthusiasm is inspiring newfound interest in the sport, particularly among women In the weeks since Algeria’s Imane Khelif won an Olympic gold medal in women’s boxing, athletes and coaches in the North African nation say national enthusiasm is inspiring newfound interest in the sport, particularly among women. Khelif’s image is practically everywhere, featured in advertisements at airports, on highway billboards and in boxing gyms. The 25-year-old welterweight’s success in Paris has vaulted her to national hero status, especially after Algerians rallied behind her in the face of uninformed speculation about her gender and eligibility to compete. Amateur boxer Zougar Amina, a medical student who has been practicing for a year, called Khelif an
GOING GLOBAL: The regular season fixture is part of the football league’s increasingly ambitious plans to spread the sport to international destinations The US National Football League (NFL) breaks new ground in its global expansion strategy tomorrow when the Philadelphia Eagles and Green Bay Packers face off in the first-ever grid-iron game staged in Brazil. For one night only, the land of Pele and ‘The Beautiful Game’ will get a rare glimpse into the bone-crunching world of American football as the Packers and Eagles collide at Sao Paulo’s Neo Quimica Arena, the 46,000-seat home of soccer club Corinthians. The regular season fixture is part of the NFL’s increasingly ambitious plans to spread the US’ most popular sport to new territories following previous international fixtures
RSS