Let's start with Karl Stoss, the former gambling manager. After a decade as CEO of Casino Austria AG, Mr Stoss joined another company in 2016, another big wheel of fortune for him: the IOC. From day one, Mr Stoss was extremely proud of his proximity, at least linguistic proximity, to the unrivalled IOC ruler Thomas Bach. Since then, Stoss has carried out a number of important tasks for Bach, which are a disaster from a democratic point of view: Stoss heads both the Olympic Programme Commission and the Future Host Commission for the Olympic Winter Games on Bach's behalf.
Let's not kid ourselves, commission work in the IOC means: the hand-picked people, who are often modest in terms of content, deliver the result that the IOC administration wants. And the IOC administration is led by the executor of the IOC president. He in turn, general director Christophe De Kepper, simply carries out the will of his lord and master.
That's the way it is.
Forget about the rest.
Commission work for Karl Stoss initially meant that new sports had to be presented for the 2028 Summer Olympics – after a completely non-transparent process without clear rules, but with numerous blatant contradictions. You know the dubios result.
A few weeks after the IOC session in Mumbai, the second commission chaired by Stoss (and in reality controlled by the IOC administration) has now presented the future hosts of the Winter Olympics – after a completely non-transparent process without clear rules, but with numerous blatant contradictions. You know the dubios result.
- If France and the USA continue to deliver everything the IOC wants until the IOC session in Paris in July 2024, then the 2030 Winter Games will take place in the French Alps, with Nice as the Olympic centre, and the 2034 Games will be held in Salt Lake City.
- If the Swiss Olympic bidders, who were blindsided yesterday, behave well over the next four years and do everything the IOC wants, then the 2038 Winter Games will be held in Switzerland.
If not, then it won’t be there.
Sweden's Olympic bidders, who together with Latvia and the ice track in Sigulda entered the non-transparent race, will once again come away empty-handed. For how many times in Olympic history: only nine times? It felt like a few dozen times.
And Karl Stoss, who presented himself on the day of the announcement in Paris as astonishingly self-confident, at times provocatively arrogant, perhaps just couldn't hide his joy at the fact that he will be joining the IOC executive board next year.
As you know, the IOC deity usually rewards obedience and loyal service.
Details about this can be found in the list of salaries of IOC directors, some of which grew at exorbitant rates during the difficult COVID years, when the vast majority of the Olympic family had to tighten their belts, except for the IOC directors.
This is also evidenced by the previous scandalously opaque and unregulated 2032 Olympic hosting award to Brisbane and to Bach's intimate and alleged Sydney 2000 bribe payer John Coates. The Norwegian Kristin Kloster Aasen, who was responsible for this scandal in 2021 as chair of the Future Host Commission for the Games of the Olympiad was promoted to the IOC executive board in July 2021.
That's how it is in the IOC dictatorship.
