Posted on 04/24/2010 5:12:56 AM PDT by J Aguilar
‘Great survivor’ who left tainted Olympic legacy
By Andrew Jennings
Juan Antonio Samaranch, who has died aged 89, led the International Olympic Committee to its greatest prosperity and its worst corruption scandal. He took control as commercial sponsorship turned to sport for new marketing opportunities and reoriented the games into a marketing vehicle for the world's best-known consumer products [...].
Samaranch was the great survivor. Probably the last of his generation of European fascist politicians to remain active in public life,
(Excerpt) Read more at ft.com ...
Archetype of Spanish oligarch, arm-raised fully loyal to General Franco before the Communist who seek to nationalize his family business, personal friend of Serrano Suñer, the head of the Nazi faction inside Franco's regime. As political chief of Catalonia he had always a say in any important business.
After Franco's death, he reached the top of the International Olympic Commitee thanks to a helping hand from the Soviet Union, which he obtained from his post as Spanish ambassador in Moscow since 1977.
Under his rule, the city of Barcelona was chosen to host the 1992 Olympic games, which triggered a huge investment from the National government in infrastructures there, in order to clean up what it was an industrial city in decline. In 1993 the Spanish currency, the peseta, had to be devaluated.
Since 1984 he was member of the biggest Catalonian regional bank board of directors, La Caixa. He shared this post with many others alike in important companies. Today La Caixa is Spanish third bank (being the other two among the biggest in the world).
He tackled an American senate investigation commitee on the IOC corruption, leaving it untainted.
As some summarize: pure Fascism.
John Anthony StomachCramp...as I called him....sure ooozed of opportunist slime.
And, he lucked out that Los Angeles hosted the 1984 summer games.....for they were the only city who bid on them for that year (no joke). LA, which used total private funding for the games....proved that such an event was still economically feasible....even with the Communist bloc boycotting
StomachCramp got a huge break there...for the Olympics probably would have disappeared had not LA been such a success
...didn’t he insist that his staff call him “your Excellency”?
Yes, that seems to be correct.
I’m not too hot on Fascists, but I do respect people that understand and FIGHT Communists. We certainly could use a few here.
Such Fascists hate to do business in countries where the Rule of Law prevails since, in those cases, it is difficult to obtain money to share among them.
In that sense I am sure he considered Barcelona ‘92, with a great part of the Spanish National government wealth being spent in the city he controlled, a much greater success than Los Angeles ‘84 and Atlanta ‘96, where every dime spent had to be justified.
Well, the problem comes when there are no more Communists to be fought. Then, the threat to such Oligarchs arises from the average people that questions their privileges.
BobL, such people as Samaranch do not know what the word Democracy means, and would use any weapon from the wide Fascist collection of public opinion manipulation to avoid any interference from a truly people elected government.
That is the underlying problem of Spain. No other.
This idiot cost Toronto the 2008 Games because he wanted his legacy to be a Chinese Olympics. They broke every promise regarding human rights and media freedom they made to get it. I have no sympathy.
>> Under his rule, the city of Barcelona was chosen to host the 1992 Olympic games, which triggered a huge investment from the National government in infrastructures there, in order to clean up what it was an industrial city in decline. <<
Maybe Juan Antonio was a very bad man. But Barcelona is now a vibrant and beautiful city, at least in the areas I’ve seen. Does Samaranch deserve a good bit of the credit for the city’s turnaround?
“Well, the problem comes when there are no more Communists to be fought.”
Something about your name leads to believe that I’ll lose a debate on Spanish history with you...which is fine.
As to Communists - I don’t think they will EVER go away. They will change stripes and use other tactics, but there’s more than enough evidence of their work both in the US and elsewhere, pretty much every day.
Fascists and communists are pretty much the same thing my friend. Two scorpions in a bottle. Hitler was a fascist. He killed communists. German communists killed German fascists. Same sh!t.
Please check that Samaranch remarkably reproduced the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact between Hitler and Stalin, the pact the left Hitler free to attack the European democracies, in order to be appointed head of the IOC.
Ah, you kind lost me a bit.....
“Fascists and communists are pretty much the same thing my friend. Two scorpions in a bottle. Hitler was a fascist. He killed communists. German communists killed German fascists. Same sh!t.”
I won’t argue that point...us the US Communist Party loved Hitler...until the day he attacked Mother Russia...then they HATED Hitler. The Communists had no problem with Hitler’s form of government or what he was doing to his people...until that day.
Yeah, the Russkies sure profited by the 1939 Non-Aggression Pact. It allowed Stalin to gobble up the Baltic States.
I didn’t know about the Soviet connection to his getting the IOC post. This guy sounds like the kind of opportunistic survivor that is thriving today. Worshiping power does seem to have its own rewards, at least in the short term.
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