A former senior official of the Tokyo Olympic organizing committee who admitted to a bid-rigging charge said such collusion was needed to make the 2021 Summer Games a success.

Yasuo Mori, 56, who served as deputy executive director of the organizing committee, told the Tokyo District Court on July 5 that his motive was to “run a successful and wonderful Games.”

“I wonder whether the Olympics would have proceeded smoothly if I had not acted that way,” Mori said at the first hearing of his trial. “But I cannot justify what I did. I caused trouble. I regret what I did.”

He was charged with rigging bids for pre-Olympic test events and actual competitions together with seven companies, including advertising giant Dentsu Inc., which won contracts worth 41.83 billion yen ($290 million) among themselves.

Prosecutors said Mori’s personal career aspirations were at work, too.

According to their opening statement, Mori engaged in the bid-rigging to “lead the Games to a successful conclusion at his initiative and maintain his status and honor in the sporting world.”

Mori emphasized that sports organizations lacking experienced event organizers rely on a select group of businesses with specialized knowledge on specific sports to take care of everything and anything.

The Olympic organizing committee decided to hold a competitive tender for contracts for planning test events, but Mori indicated at the hearing that he had preferred to designate specific contractors.

“An accumulation of experience is required to respond to contingencies,” he said. “No one believes that a first-timer can do that.”

Mori and others effectively determined the successful bidders before the tender was conducted.

“I did not think what I was doing was completely legitimate,” he said. “I arbitrarily made a rule and decided that there would be no problem if I did not make a firm commitment (to awarding the contracts).”

According to prosecutors’ opening statement, Mori felt a sense of crisis about a lack of preparations when he became responsible for test events in September 2016. He sought cooperation from Dentsu the following month.

Dentsu thought it would be able to win contracts for actual competitions of its choice and secure profits if it organized test events smoothly and complied with Mori’s request, prosecutors said.

Mori’s primary partner was Koji Henmi, 55, former assistant director of Dentsu’s sports division, who has also been indicted in the case.

The two initially considered establishing a secretariat led by Dentsu that would manage all test events, but the plan was dropped around September 2017 after the planning and financial bureau chief, who was on loan from the Finance Ministry, opposed.

The bureau chief said Dentsu could siphon off commissions if all decisions about test events were left entirely to the company, prosecutors said.

Mori shifted his strategy to awarding contracts also to other companies with experience in organizing sports events in a balanced manner, and Dentsu agreed partly because of the lack of personnel available for handling all test events.

Mori and Dentsu began allocating 26 test event planning contracts, which were awarded for each sports venue, among the companies involved, taking their priorities into consideration.

The companies were told if they won the planning contracts, they would be asked to organize those test events. And they would automatically be awarded more lucrative contracts for managing the corresponding events during the Tokyo Olympics.

When more than one company sought the same sports event, Dentsu’s choices were often honored, according to prosecutors.

TV production company Fuji Creative Corp. gave up submitting its bid for the Saitama Super Arena, the venue for basketball events, after Mori told the company that Dentsu would be in charge of the venue.

Hakuhodo DY Holdings Inc., the nation’s second-largest advertising agency, had planned to manage sports climbing events. But it settled on becoming a subcontractor under Dentsu for the Aomi Urban Sports Park, where the events would be held along with other sports.

Mori told the company that Dentsu would be in charge of the venue and suggested that Hakuhodo form a joint venture with its rival or become its subcontractor.

A sponsorship contract is another example of the long-term excessive dependance on advertising agencies for sports events, critics say.

Dentsu, for example, is responsible for finding sponsor companies under a seven-year contract with the Japanese Olympic Committee from 2022.

The company was an exclusive agent in charge of finding sponsors for the Tokyo Olympics.

If Dentsu failed to secure sponsorship money, it was required to pay 180 billion yen as a minimum guarantee to the organizing committee.

The organizers of the Asian Games, which will be held in Aichi Prefecture and elsewhere in 2026, and the 2025 World Athletics Championships scheduled for Tokyo, decided not to use an exclusive agent system following the scandals surrounding the Tokyo Olympics.