The example of the Jet Set Sports owned by Sead Dizdarevic is a perfect
illustration of how to infiltrate the most isolated and closed structures and
create a platform for further networking.
A military academy dropout from Yugoslavia, Dizdarevic immigrated to
the US and “launched his company in 1975 to focus on the opportunity unfolding
at the 1984 Olympic Winter Games and the first executed Olympic Games packages
for the 1984 Winter Olympic Games in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia
During
the Olympics,
he converted the Sarajevo
villa of the late Marshal Tito into corporate suites and persuaded Yugoslav
military officers to host Americans in their own homes, and to serve them tea
or whiskey once a day as a special treat.
According
to the 2004 database of federal campaign contributions in 07931 (zip code for
New Jersey, Far Hills) Sead Dizdarevic was a resident of Far Hills, where he
lived with his wife Margaret, homemaker. According to the same source, for the
2004 Fundrace Mr. Dizdarevic donated $ 25.000 to RNC (Republican National State
Elections Committee) + $ 2.000 to George
W. Bush in the capacity of the CEO of Jet Set Sports, and $ 500 privately; and
his wife Margaret donated $2.000 to the George W. Bush campaign. According to
the source at campaignmoney.com/political/contribution, he made the same
political choice in 2002 and made donations several times. (Several articles on Sead Dizdarevic and
his dealings with the Olympics, including the scandals involving VIPs available below).
In 1984 he issued statement for the
local BaH daily “Oslobodjenje” on the 6th
of April in the capacity of the
co-owner of the Jet Set Tours from New York praising the work of the local BaH
economic giant UPI (production of foods; agriculture; 3000 retail places;
catering and accommodation services at own hotels, motels, restaurants and
grills and UPI bank), in accommodating
and providing meals for the rich American businessmen, members of the Merill
Lynch Club. On this occasion he mentioned that he groups of guests had been
accommodated at the Ciglane apartment blocks and the meals were organized for
them at UPI’s restaurant Oktobar at the department store “Sarajka”. He
acknowledged that it was only the beginning of further cooperation.
Primjer kompanije Jet Set Sports u vlasništvu Seada Dizdarevića
savršeno ilustrira kako je zapravo moguće infiltrirati se u najizoliranije i
najzatvorenije strukture i stvoriti platformu za dalje umrežavanje. Dizdarević
koji je prekinuo školovanje na vojnoj akademiji, iz Jugoslavije je emigrirao u
SAD, kako bi osnovao kompaniju 1975. i fokusirao se na poslovne prilike koje su
se ukazale u vezi sa Zimskim olimpijskim igrama u Sarajevu. Za potrebe sještaja
američkih putnika ne samo da je dobio na raspolaganje sarajevsku vilu Maršala
Tita, nego mu je i omogućeno da organizira smještaj Amerikanaca u domovima
vojnih lica.
Peter Waldman: Schmoozer makes Olympic comeback (The Wall Street Journal, 2002)
For off-the-field Olympic comebacks, the story of Sead Dizdarevic may be
unparalleled.
Dizdarevic is the official corporate-hospitality sponsor of the Olympic Winter
Games, a title that hardly does justice to a picaresque career. After the
closing ceremonies this Sunday, his company, Jet Set Sports, will have shuffled
16,000 visitors through Salt Lake City,
filled 18,000 hotel beds, provided 132,000 meals and hawked $23 million worth
of Games tickets. Jet Set's Olympics-related sales, including those to its
blue-chip schmoozing clients like ChevronTexaco, AOL Time Warner, Merrill Lynch
and McDonald's, could top $80 million, he says. Not bad for an immigrant from Bosnia who in 1999 told a
federal judge in Brooklyn, N.Y., that his company had an unlisted phone number,
didn't advertise and didn't even own a checkbook since it dealt mostly in
foreign currency. Later, he told U.S.
prosecutors he had given $131,000 in cash to the leaders of Salt Lake's
Olympic bid committee, dispensing the notes by hand at hotels and airports in
1994 and 1995. The allegations, which might have ended Dizdarevic's
Olympics affiliation, anchored the government's 15-count indictment of the bid
group's top two officers for racketeering and fraud, dismissed last year by a U.S. district
judge here.Dizdarevic says his brush with scandal is ancient history now. The
plucky 51-year-old New Jersey resident,
through his sponsorship agreement with the Salt Lake Organizing Committee and
the U.S. Olympic Committee, holds a virtual monopoly on the U.S. Olympic
tickets-package market. In exchange for roughly $20 million in fees, spread out
over three Olympic Games through Athens
in 2004, Dizdarevic enjoys guaranteed
access to large allotments of premium-grade tickets and hotel rooms, which he
resells in packages at steeply marked-up prices to eager corporate buyers. He
also owns the rights to resell scads of second-tier events tickets, which he
bundles with two- and three-star hotel rooms for sale to the public at large. "His
corporate clients think the world of him," says Dick Schultz, who ran the
USOC in the late 1990s when Dizdarevic was one of several authorized ticket
re-sellers who had to scramble to nail down access. "Sead's taken a
cottage industry and turned it into a real blockbuster." The Salt Lake
Games are an example. Dizdarevic used
the sponsorship agreement, which he signed in 1999, to help lock up 30 percent
of the city's hotel capacity and more than 10 percent of the Games' tickets. He
booked three of the area's best restaurants for the entire 17-day Olympics, and
leased 124 SUVs and 24 buses to take VIPs around. Most corporate packages sell
for $20,000 to $30,000 for a three-day stay, all inclusive but airfare. He
sold out last spring.
"He's always years ahead of everybody else," says Don Barr, a former
publisher of Sports Illustrated, which has sent thousands of guests to the past
several Games with Dizdarevic. "He delivers." Dizdarevic is among
those who say the Olympic movement needed the 1998 Salt Lake
bid scandal to clean up its act. In that imbroglio, two Olympics organizers
were accused of giving $1 million in payoffs to International Olympic Committee
members to curry favor for Salt
Lake's bid. The IOC
ousted 10 of its members for accepting lavish gifts. Dizdarevic received immunity from prosecution for cooperating with the
government in the case. Today he says the scandal was the best thing that ever
happened to the Olympics. "Now we have rules," he says. "We
need one more (scandal), then the Olympic movement will be a true Olympic
movement again."Dizdarevic was no slacker under the old rules, either. He acknowledges making cash
"contributions" over the years to Olympics organizers whose access to
tickets, hotel rooms and the like he needed to run his business. Stan
Parrish, who ran Utah's economic-development
office in the late 1980s, once wrote a report after meeting Dizdarevic in Europe. The topic: strategies to win the Games. "Sead had some interesting thoughts
about . . . the mechanics of the (IOC) voting process," Parrish wrote in
the 1989 memo. "He also said he spent $500,000 on the Sofia bid and felt he learned some
interesting lessons in the process. He feels some political commitments are
made with trade-offs."Dizdarevic confirms giving "tens of
thousands" of dollars to Bulgaria's
failed Olympics bid, in his role as official agent of the Bulgaria
Olympic Committee. "It was my honor, my privilege," he says.
Dizdarevic also had a penchant for striking up business ties with wives,
daughters and girlfriends of people with influence over the Games — a practice
he never meant "as anything dishonorable," he says. In one
business venture outlined in court filings in the Salt Lake
federal fraud case, Dizdarevic was linked in the early 1990s to Susan Krimsky,
wife of the USOC's chief marketer at the time, John Krimsky. The court
document, filed by defense lawyers based on Dizdarevic's testimony to a federal
grand jury, labels the tie-up "a classic kickback scheme," which
ended in Dizdarevic's paying Susan Krimsky $225,000 for a company "then of
little worth," the filing says. Dizdarevic, citing the court matter,
declines to comment, except to say it was nothing improper. Susan Krimsky could
not be reached for comment; her husband declined to answer questions about
Dizdarevic. Before the 2000 Sydney Olympics, Dizdarevic says, he hired the
girlfriend of a local Olympics organizing executive to book hotel rooms for the
Australia Games, never realizing how awkward it might look, he says. Likewise,
in Salt Lake,
Dizdarevic says he commissioned Utah
travel agent Cathy Barnes to assemble Olympic tour packages for Jet Set's
individual clients starting in 1999 — not realizing Barnes is the daughter of
Gordon B. Hinckley, president and prophet of the The Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints. (Barnes has no connection to SLOC or the IOC, though her
husband, Alan, worked as SLOC's office manager until his death last year. She
has since sold her agency and didn't return messages left with former
colleagues in Salt
Lake.) "Now I
realize how some people zero in on perceptions," says Dizdarevic.Raised in a prosperous Muslim family
outside Sarajevo, Dizdarevic fled the former Yugoslavia at age 20, dropping out of a military
academy to play club soccer in West
Germany. He immigrated to Staten
Island, N.Y., in the early 1970s
and founded a travel agency specializing in discount flights to Yugoslavia. His
business boomed as he arranged tickets for amateur sports teams traveling
between the United States
and Eastern bloc, connections he would parlay into his first Olympics break:
handling tickets and hospitality for Americans traveling to the 1984 Winter
Games in Sarajevo.
Short of comfortable hotel rooms, he converted the Sarajevo villa of the late Yugoslav dictator
Marshal Tito into corporate suites. He also persuaded Yugoslav military officers
and others to host Americans in their own homes, and to serve them tea or
whiskey once a day as a special treat. Faced with the same problem in Lillehammer, Norway, in 1992, Dizdarevic
persuaded a farmer to rent his field for a 183-room temporary hotel he had
built in the middle of town. He lost money on the deal, but it was the best
investment he ever made, Dizdarevic says. "Even Olympic people who
don't know my name know that hotel," he says. After Salt
Lake, it's off to the 2004 Summer
Games in Athens,
where Dizdarevic is negotiating with the local organizing committee to be the
official corporate-hospitality sponsor there as well. Seven of his nine major
corporate clients have already committed to sending guests. Two luxury cruise
ships and 600 four-star hotel rooms have been nailed down, as well as 1,100
less-pricey rooms for noncorporate guests. Then come the 2006 Winter Games in Turino, Italy;
Dizdarevic says he expects to sign a sponsorship letter of intent this week. He
has booked 550 high-end beds and 750 consumer rooms. For Beijing, 2008, he and the organizers have
held introductory meetings. Dizdarevic says corporations are jumping at China; he predicts corporate attendance will be
2 1/2 times what it is in Salt
Lake, reaching 40,000
guests. "A lot of them don't want to wait six years," Dizdarevic
says. "They'd like to jump from here to Beijing."
Jet Set Sports LLC (Far Hills, N.J.),
the parent company of CoSport LLC, is a leading provider of Olympic Games
hospitality packages and individual Olympic Games event tickets. Since 1984
Olympic Games in Sarajevo,
Jet Set Sports has provided corporate clients with unparalleled hospitality
experiences at Olympic Games through its VIP Hospitality Programs and
Hospitality Management Services (
www.jetsetsports.com).
CoSport (
www.cosport.com) is the Official Ticket Sales Agent of the
United States Olympic Committee (USOC) for the 2006 Olympic Winter Games in Torino, Italy.
The partnership was established to provide Americans the opportunity to
purchase premier event tickets and hospitality packages, including meals,
bi-lingual hosts, ground transportation obtained directly through the Olympic
Organizing Committees, accommodation and tickets to base level packages which
include tickets and accommodations for the upcoming Olympic Winter Games. As
the Official Ticket Sales Agent of the USOC and Official Sponsor of the Torino
2006 Olympic Winter Games, CoSport headed by its President Matt Bijur is the
only company that provides full access to the Olympic Games. CoSport and Jet
Set Sports were also the Official Ticket and Travel Package Sponsor of the
Canadian Olympic Team and Official Supporter level sponsor of the Athens 2004
Olympic Games.
Jet Set Sports LLC, the parent company of CoSport, is a leading provider of
Olympic Games hospitality packages and individual Olympic Games event tickets.
Since 1984, Jet Set Sports has provided corporate clients with unparalleled
hospitality experiences at Olympic Games through its VIP Hospitality Programs
and Hospitality Management Services. The founder of Jet Set Sports is Sead
Dizdarevic. Jet Set, a pioneer in Olympic Games corporate travel and
hospitality logistics, has built its name nearly exclusively over the last two
decades with large corporations, mainly Games sponsors. Dizdarevic launched his
company in 1975 to focus on the opportunity unfolding at the 1984 Olympic
Winter Games and the first executed Olympic Games packages for the 1984 Winter
Olympic Games in his native Sarajevo,
Yugoslavia
.
The company and its public ticket sales subsidiary, CoSport, became U.S.
Olympic Games sponsors in 2000 essentially as a defensive move to discourage
competition.
On February 26,
2003, Jet Set Sports announced sponsorship agreement that extended Jet Set
Sports’ support of the United States Olympic Committee “USOC” and the U. S.
Olympic Team as the official sponsor for hospitality programs and management
services, corporate and consumer ticket and travel packages, and individual
tickets through the 2012 Olympic Games. Beginning in 2005, the agreement
confirms that Jet Set Sports, and sister company CoSport, will continue to
provide world class hospitality services for U.S. Olympic Team sponsors,
National Governing Bodies (NGBs) and their members and the general public at
the XX Olympic Winter Games in Torino, Italy in 2006, and the Games of the XXIX
Olympiad in Beijing, China in 2008, as well as the XXI Olympic Winter Games in
2010 and the Games of the XXX Olympiad in 2012. A USOC official sponsor since
2000, the agreement continues Jet Set Sports’ 20-year relationship with the
international Olympic Games Movement and ongoing relationship with the USOC… In
addition to the USOC, Jet Set Sports is a sponsor of nine other National
Olympic Committees (NOCs) and several U.S. NGBs such as; U.S. Speedskating,
U.S.A. Cycling, U.S.A. Weightlifting and U.S.A. Gymnastics.
The new sponsorship agreement is ground breaking for the USOC. For the first
time, all of the ticket and hospitality packages are combined under a single
exclusive provider. Lloyd Ward, U.S. Olympic Committee CEO said, “Jet Set
Sports has a long-standing tradition of supporting athletes from around the
world in their pursuit of excellence. Through the extension of the sponsorship
agreement with the U.S. Olympic Team, Jet Set is once again demonstrating its
commitment to America’s
athletes.”
Additionally, Jet
Set Sports was an Official Sponsor of the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens (on the
basis of its relationship with the 2004 Athens
Organising Committee ATHOC) and the 2002 Olympic Winter Games in Salt Lake City and a
provider of the 2002 Olympic Games Torch Relay. During the 2002 Salt Lake Olympic
Winter Games more than 12 U.S.
Olympic sponsors utilized Jet Set Sports’ hospitality services while CoSport,
the Official Public Package Agent for the 2002 Olympic Winter Games, hosted
several thousand individual guests. Jet
Set Sports donates thousands of complimentary tickets to Olympic Games events
to Olympic Games volunteers, Olympic Games Aid and numerous other non-profit
organizations. In addition Jet Set Sports has provided complimentary tickets
and otherwise aided underprivileged youngsters, Paralympic athletes, art and
culture programs and community-based organizations in every Olympic Games host
city for which the company has provided hospitality services.
Salt Lake City Scandal
WinterSports2002.com, Thursday, July 20, 2000 - Welch, Johnson are indicted Olympic bid leaders Tom Welch and Dave Johnson
were indicted on July 20, 2000 in U.S. District Court on felony counts
involving what they did to bring the 2002 Olympic Winter Games to Salt Lake City. The
indictment listed conspiracy, aiding and abetting, mail, wire and honest
services fraud, and violations of the Travel Act. A grand jury handed up a
15-count indictment. The indictment alleges the conspiracy took place between
February 1988 and July 1999 and among other things involved Welch and Johnson
recruiting Alfredo LaMont, who was then the USOC director of international
relations, to "secretly assist" the bid committee in defeating other
U.S. cities in obtaining USOC support to be the host city of the Olympic Winter
Games. The three counts related to violations of the Travel Act detail
"overt acts " intended to influence current and former IOC members
Sergio Santander-Fantini, Guirandou N'Daiye, Anton Geesink, David Sibandze,
Lamine Keita, Pirjo Haggman, Slobodon Filopobic, Austin Sealy, Augustin Arroyo,
Rene Essomba, Un Yong Kim, Zein Gadir, Charles Mukora, Bashir Attarabulsi, and
Jean Claude Ganga.
According to the indictment, the two bid
leaders: Secretly paid an official of the U.S. Olympic Committee to
assist the Salt Lake Bid Committee in being chosen by the USOC as its candidate
city. Personally diverted $130,000 in bid committee income.
Offered and paid $1 million to influence the votes of more than a dozen
International Olympic Committee members. Prepared and executed a series of
bogus contracts.
Falsified bid committee and organizing committee books, records and other
publicly available documents to conceal their activities.
The indictment explains what federal prosecutors believe Welch and
Johnson did with some $130,000 in cash received from an exclusive Olympic
travel agency that is now a Salt
Lake Organizing Committee
sponsor. Jet Set Sports, a New Jersey-based company headed by Sead Dizdarevic,
acknowledged in a prepared statement that contributions were made to the bid
committee and were disclosed to federal investigators. "In order to assist
a United States bid city and
at the request of bid committee officials, Jet Set made contributions to the Salt Lake
Bid Committee," the statement from corporate counsel Robert Boyar read.
"Mr. Dizdarevic has fully disclosed and explained these contributions to
the Department of Justice investigators and is cooperating with the ongoing
investigation." Welch's attorney, William Taylor, based in Washington, D.C.,
said Wednesday that Dizdarevic did not want a record of the contributions. The
cash payments were made between August 1994 and May 1995. "Everybody was concerned that
they needed to raise as much money as they could, including Tom and Dave. When
this guy offered to make a contribution, they were glad to have it," Taylor said. Even though
the funds never showed up in bid committee records, Taylor said it was used only for authorized
purposes, including reimbursing IOC members for their expenses. The company was
signed earlier this year as a sponsor of the 2002 Winter Games in a deal worth
some $20 million to SLOC. Since the 1984 Summer Games in Dizdarevic's native Sarajevo, the company has
provided hotels and other hospitality needs for corporate clients. For the 2000
Summer Games in Sydney, Australia, Jet Set Sports has already sold out a
$135,000 travel package that includes a car and driver provided through the Sydney organizing
committee as well as special access to events.
Deseret News
Archives - July 20, 2000
© 2000 Deseret News Publishing Company When the Tom and Alma Welch
domestic violence story hit the press in July 1997, Tom was thousands of miles
away in Africa hunting big game. So much was
being made over what had happened here in the United
States—an incident that led to his resignation as
president of the Salt Lake Olympic Organizing Committee—that no one paid
attention to who he was with in Africa. Until
now. Welch was hunting with Bosnian entrepreneur Sead Dizdarevic. Dizdarevic
owns Jet Set Sports USA, a New Jersey-based company that’s a 2002 Olympic
sponsor and provides “hospitality” packages for jet setters who attend Olympic
Games. It was reportedly on Dizdarevic’s satellite telephone that Welch got the
bad news—“The media has the story, all hell is breaking loose, you better get
out of Africa and back home.” Three years
later, Dizdarevic has popped up again—without being identified. Only the term “sponsor” is used in the
15-count indictment against Tom Welch and Dave Johnson, returned last week
by a federal grand jury. The indictment
lists four times that Jet Set gave envelopes stuffed with cash to Johnson and
Welch. For example, this ominous, covert-sounding scenario: “In or about August
1994, defendant David R. Johnson met an employee of the sponsor at the Salt Lake
International Airport
where the employee gave defendant Johnson an envelope containing approximately
$35,000 in cash.” Prosecutors alleged Welch and Johnson used the cash “for
personal purposes.” If that allegation were proven in court, it could push a
teetering jury toward the side of conviction—juries are more easily angered by
alleged evil-doers putting actual cash in their pockets than work done for some
long-term, not-yet-realized gain. Welch’s and Johnson’s attorneys, in a
pre-emptive strike a day before the indictments were handed down, disclosed the
Jet Set deal. But they insisted all the money was used for the bid effort, not
their clients, and will be accounted for at trial. One source told City Weekly that Dizdarevic paid for Welch’s
July 1997 African big-game hunt. Welch declined to confirm or deny. If the
trip was paid for by the Bosnian, was it ethical and legal, or merely more of
the play-according-to-international-rules that had hallmarked the bid process? Dizdarevic may have been wining and
dining Welch, who would have been one of those negotiating Jet Set Sport’s
sponsorship/ticket-selling contract with SLOC. Indeed there were two deals
to cut, two financial figures to agree on: the amount Jet Set would pay for its
sponsorship, and the cost and number of tickets Jet Set would get to sell to
Dizdarevic’s well-heeled customers. Not
all Salt Lake organizers appreciated Dizdarevic’s
modus operandi. First, there were the rumors he had mishandled tickets when
his company was launched, in order to pamper rich guests coming to see the 1984
Winter Games in his native Sarajevo.
Second, there was the fact that he would try to snap up some of the best hotel
rooms in downtown Salt Lake City,
making it harder for bid workers to put up international reporters and their
own dignitaries. “Don’t forget, every hotel room Sead gets costs the
organizing committee money,” an organizer said. “If Sead gets 500 rooms or
1,000 rooms in the core of the city, then that means 1,000 members of the press
or the broadcasters are pushed out further. And you’re going to have to move
them in buses.” Third, there was the
conflict-of-interest issue. Dizdarevic apparently enlisted the help of a Salt
Lake destination meeting company, Sample Salt Lake, to help deal with hotels.
But the husband of Sample co-owner Kathleen H. Barnes, Alan, is the SLOC staff
member coordinating “interfaith relations.” Some fellow staffers were
reportedly furious about the conflict. Kathleen Barnes—oldest daughter of LDS
church President Gordon B. Hinckley—declined to talk about it. She would only
say she had met Dizdarevic, knew him, and had done “very little” with him. Fourth, there’s the alleged kickback
concern. “It’s a legalized scalping scheme,” one former organizer said of deals
Jet Set cuts with Olympic organizing committees. “Sead sells a package and pays
the organizing committee back 30 percent.” Jet Set Sports did not reach a
sponsorship agreement with SLOC until May this year, long after Tom Welch was
gone and Mitt Romney took the helm. The
right to be official manager of corporate hospitality supposedly required a
contribution from Jet Set of some $20 million cash. After Welch’s
departure, SLOC chose to deal with Dizdarevic despite the fact that the
organizing committee’s legal counsel, Latham & Watkins, must have known
government prosecutors were looking into his payments to Welch and Johnson. And they had to have known Jet Set was
linked to a conflict-of-interest controversy in connection with the upcoming
Summer Games in Sydney.
The Sydney
press reported that the girlfriend of committee member Phil Coles resigned in
connection with a conflict-of-interest dispute. Patricia Rosenbrock quit after
it was publicly disclosed she was working for Jet Set at the same time her
partner was on the Sydney Organizing Committee. Tom Welch told one Sydney paper he had
recommended Rosenbrock for the post with Dizdarevic. Dizdarevic denied that,
saying he preferred not to name the person who put them together. Jet Set was later drawn into a ticket
controversy that stained the Sydney Organizing Committee, a controversy that
prompted Australia’s
prime minister to accuse the committee of a cover-up. A down-under
publication reported that some buyers were paying up to four times face value
for premium tickets. Meanwhile, Utah’s
organizing committee won’t say if its deal with Jet Set Sports includes a
kickback scheme. Romney, in an interview last week with City Weekly,
said Jet Set did have the right to acquire tickets and the right to hotel
rooms. “And in the case of Jet Set, it could entail a larger number of tickets
because they are a travel agent and they’re actually providing a service for us
and the community,” Romney said.
START broj: 87, Datum: 4/8/2002 Kako je Bosanac Sead Dizdarević
postao kralj olimpijskih ulaznica
Za poznatu aferu podmićivanja u MOK-u, ovaj bivši Sarajlija kaže da je nešto
najbolje što se dogodilo olimpijskom pokretu
Sarajlija Sead
Dizdarević koji se još od održavanja ZOI u Sarajevu bavi prodajom ulaznica i
smještajem gostiju u gradovima domaćinima ove manifestacije, prema pisanju
američkih medija, sve je češće na udaru američke javnosti i sudstva zbog afera
u koje je umiješan. Naime, Dizdarević je vlasnik agencije Jet set koja se bavi
prodajom ulaznica za olimpijske igre i bio je zvanični domaćin - sponzor
Olimpijskih igara u Salt Lake Citiju.
Današnjeg stanovnika New Jerseya, 1999. godine američke vlasti optužile su za
reketiranje i pronevjeru. Nešto kasnije osumnjičen je i za učešće u poznatom
slučaju podmićivanja članova MOK-a, kada su dvojica organizatora OI u Salt
Lakeu isplatili milion dolara za favoriziranje. No, zbog saradnje s vlastima u
ovom slučaju Dizdarević je dobio imunitet i nije sudski gonjen.
- Ovo je bilo najbolje što se dogodilo Olimpijskim igrama. Potrebna još jedna
ovakva afera kako bi olimpijski pokret ponovno bio pravi pokret - rekao je
Dizdarević nakon što je taj slučaj okončan.
Svoj nevjerovatan uspjeh, unatoč umiješanosti u afere, Dizdarević, tvrde
Amerikanci, duguje navodno slučajnim poznanstvima sa suprugama, kćerkama ili
djevojkama ljudi od uticaja u MOK-u i među organizatorima olimpijada. Prije
održavanja igara u Sydneyu unajmio je kćerku lokalnog organizatora da mu
pomogne u bukiranju hotela, a u Salt Lakeu je poslovao s Cathy Barns, navodno
ne znajući da je ona kćerka Gordona B. Hinkleya, predsjednika i donatora
Mormonske crkve, najutjecajnije u državi Utah.
Tada je njegova kompanija napunila 18.000 hotelskih kreveta, obezbijedila
132.000 obroka i odvezla oko 16.000 turista nakon zatvaranja Igara. Premda su
klijenti zadovoljni njegovim radom,
prozvan je monopolistom koji i po godinu dana unaprijed proda karte i rezerviše
najbolje hotele za svoje goste. Trenutno je u fazi pregovora za bukiranje 550
kreveta i 750 soba za Olimpijadu u Torinu 2006. godine, a sprema se i za
pregovore o organiziranju Olimpijskih igara u Pekingu 2008. godine.
Jet Set Sports CEO Testifies at Olympic
Bribery Trial Nov. 25, 2003 John
Daley Reporting At the Olympic trial today
was testimony about a crucial issue in the case, 130-thousand dollars a top
Olympic sponsor says he gave in cash to defendants Tom Welch and Dave Johnson.
Prosecutors alleged the pair pocketed the money, but the defense team says the
exchange will be explained later in the trial. On display at the Olympic trial
was the world created by the ‘Lords of the Rings’--the royalty of the IOC--a
world of cold hard cash, conflicts of interest, and, prosecutors say,
corruption. One face of that world is Sead Dizdarevic, owner of Olympic sponsor
Jet Set Sports, which sells pricey hotel and ticket packages. On the stand the
Croatian businessman smiles and casually explains how, at their request, he
gave former Salt Lake Olympic leaders Tom Welch and Dave Johnson 130-thousand
dollars in cash in 1994 and '95. Dizdarevic, who was given immunity in exchange
for his testimony, called the money a "business expense” and said it was
handed off in envelopes at four prearranged meetings at hotels and airports.Also,
on three occasions in '94 and once before the Lillehammer Games, the bid
committee gave Dizdarevic 70-thousand dollars -- 45-thousand in checks -- to a
Canadian Jet Set company called OL-CAL and another 25-thousand dollars Welch
gave to Dizdarevic in a hotel lobby in Norway. Unclear from his testimony is
who requested the exchange, Dizdarevic or the defendants. On cross-examination
one of Welch's attorneys uncovers some funny business in Jet Set's
accounting—checks the defense believes were doctored to hide any connection
between Jet Set and Salt
Lake. Blair Brown,
Attorney for Tom Welch: "We certainly believe that Sead wanted to keep his
contributions to the Salt
Lake bid committee quiet
unless and until they won. And that's why he went to great lengths to not have
any paper reflecting the contributions to Salt Lake.
Those were used for his tax returns and his books and records." Also
today, former USOC official Alfredo LaMont wrapped up his testimony, which
revealed another series of under-the-table deals that lead to federal charges
of tax fraud. Alfredo LaMont, Former USOC Official: "It was my choice at
all points in time. I had a choice. No one twisted my arm. Nobody forced me to
do anything. That's what happened. I made a wrong choice and that's what it
was." LaMont now awaits word on a possible sentence for his Olympic
choices. Jet Set Sports did become a top Olympic sponsor for the 2002 Games
thanks to an exclusive contract the company signed with the Organizing
Committee, not while Welch and Johnson were there, but under then President
Mitt Romney. Dizdarevic, who makes a 2 million dollar annual salary, testified
that Jet Set made a 7 million dollar profit at the Salt Lake Games.
Olympic sponsor cooperating in bribery probe SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- An Olympic sponsor acknowledged
late Wednesday it was cooperating with federal investigators looking into
$130,000 in cash payments given to Salt
Lake's bid leaders.
Lawyers for Tom Welch and Dave Johnson believe the payments will figure
in a barrage of grand jury indictments against them. No charges had been filed
by Wednesday. New York-based Jet Set Sports, a corporate ticket and
travel agent for the 2002 Winter Games, made a series of cash payments to bid
leaders totaling $130,000 from August 1994 to May 1995, according to Johnson
attorney Max Wheeler. He said the money was spent on bid expenses, a
claim that brought a derisive scoff from a law enforcement official who would
not elaborate. Jet Set corporate counsel Robert Boyar issued a statement
Wednesday confirming that company president Sead Dizdarevic made contributions
to the Salt Lake bid committee at the request of bid
officials. "Mr. Dizdarevic has fully disclosed and explained these
contributions to Department of Justice investigators and is cooperating with
the ongoing investigation," Boyar said. He did not immediately return a
call for elaboration. Jet Set is a broker of Olympic hospitality
services. The company, also a sponsor at the 2000 Summer Games in Sydney, is selling an
Australian package including tickets and lodging for up to $135,000 for two
people. The company says on its Web site that it financed an expansion and took
over management of a Japanese hotel for its customers at the 1998 Winter Games
in Nagano.
Dizdarevic made the cash payments to Welch and Johnson because he stood to
"make a huge profit" as a Utah
sponsor, Wheeler said. Welch and Johnson can prove the money was spent on
the bid effort, not to enrich themselves, said Wheeler, who nonetheless expects
the Justice Department to allege the bid leaders kept the money.
"The $130,000 question is, where did the money go?" asked Paul
Cassell, a University
of Utah professor and
former federal prosecutor who has closely watched the scandal unfold.
"Even if it seems fishy, the government has to prove the money went
in Welch and Johnson's pocket for personal gain. That's straightforward fraud
that a jury can understand. But again, the burden of proof is on the
government. The defense doesn't have to prove anything." Wheeler said
the money was used to reimburse Welch and Johnson for travel and lodging
expenses and gifts for International Olympic Committee members. The cash came
in handy when banks were closed on weekends or at overseas meetings, he said.
The funds were not recorded on the bid committee's books, deposited in
its bank accounts or reflected on tax filings, prosecutors told defense
lawyers. But Wheeler said he can't verify that assertion because he doesn't
have the records. Dizdarevic has hitched his business to the Olympics
since the 1984 Winter Games in his native Sarajevo,
Yugoslavia, now
Bosnia-Herzegovina. Through the years, Jet Set has played host to national
Olympic committees, corporate sponsors, broadcasters and others. It locks up
hotels and restaurants in Olympic cities for its clients. Dizdarevic pledged
$20 million in cash and services in May to renew an Olympic sponsorship.
