Photo/Illutration The National Stadium in Tokyo on Aug. 9, 2021, a day after the Tokyo Olympics Opening Ceremony (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

The rampant corruption surrounding an event that used a huge amount of taxpayers’ money should be rooted out together with the atmosphere that allowed such misdeeds to thrive.

The bribery scandal over the Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games has developed into a major criminal case. Prosecutors recognized about 200 million yen ($1.44 million) as bribes and indicted 15 individuals, including Haruyuki Takahashi, a former board member of the organizing committee, and corporate executives.

Investigations by the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office centered on Takahashi and expanded to cover well-known businesses across industries, such as menswear retailing, publishing and advertising.

Takahashi, who hails from Dentsu Inc., Japan’s largest advertising agency, was involved in the Tokyo Games from the bidding stage. In the organizing committee, he had powerful authority over the selection of sponsors and the procurement of licensed products.

The businesses implicated in the scandal bear heavy responsibility if they crossed the line out of greed for the rights to market official goods and for publicity from their involvement in the Games.

Some companies charged with bribery had opportunities to back out of the questionable dealings. At one company, a lawyer pointed out to senior officials that remitting money to a consulting company with connections to Takahashi would amount to bribery.

Perhaps the companies’ managerial decisions were distorted by the temptation to take part in Games-related business.

Court procedures will determine the criminal responsibility of individuals who misappropriated the “festival of peace” for their own personal benefit.

However, the root of the problem lies in the very structure that allowed a dubious intermediary business to generate vast amounts of profit.

It will be difficult to prevent a recurrence unless the scandal is thoroughly reviewed, including its background, although this might not be directly addressed in court.

It is particularly important to make clear how the Tokyo Organizing Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games allowed Takahashi to have his own way.

The organizing committee’s governance had become dysfunctional, as exemplified by Yoshiro Mori’s misogynistic remarks that forced him to step down as the committee president.

The committee, which decisively lacked transparency in the selection of sponsors, service providers and suppliers, was evidently unfit to operate events that required huge public expenditures.

Dependence on Dentsu partly accounted for why the check functions failed to work properly within the organizing committee.

Apart from Takahashi, a Dentsu alumnus, many employees of the advertising giant worked on loan at the committee and served as department heads.

Dentsu has unrivaled strength in the domestic advertising industry. The sporting world in particular is under Dentsu’s strong influence and relies on the company in a broad range of areas, including organizing events and recruiting sponsors.

The bribery scandal can be connected to the way bribery suspicions over Tokyo’s Olympic bid were closed after only a half-hearted investigation in Japan.

Tokyo’s Olympic bid became a target of international investigations by French authorities, with Tsunekazu Takeda, former president of the Japanese Olympic Committee, suspected of involvement in bribery.

Now that the prosecutors’ investigations into the bribery scandal have reached a certain point, attention both at home and abroad is being focused on how the Japanese central and local governments as well as the JOC will fulfill their accountability.

The parties concerned will have to set up a third-party panel to closely study where the essence of the failure lies.

They should keep it in mind that the latest scandal has raised a fundamental question about the significance of having a public organization involved in gigantic events, including the Olympics.

--The Asahi Shimbun, Nov. 13

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