LAUSANNE, Switzerland (AFP) — High-profile African International Olympic Committee (IOC) members Issa Hayatou and Lamine Diack received a reprimand and a warning, respectively, from the IOC yesterday.

The IOC Executive Board rubberstamped the recommendations made by the IOC Ethics Commission after an investigation into corruption following a BBC Panorama documentary last year that both men had taken money from former marketing agency, International Sport and Leisure (ISL).

ISL — which had among its clients FIFA and athletics governing body IAAF — went bankrupt in 2001 with debts of around $300 million.

The biggest name to be mentioned in the documentary, former FIFA president Joao Havelange, had pre-empted the findings by resigning as a member which forced the IOC to close the case.

IOC president Jacques Rogge said that African football supremo Hayatou’s reprimand was a sanction whereas International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) president Lamine Diack’s warning was not as harsh.

Rogge said the fact both Hayatou and Diack had not been IOC members at the time they were accused of taking money had played in their favour.

“It was taken into consideration that they were not IOC members at the time. You can say that it was a mitigating circumstance.”

Rogge, who came to power in 2001 in the wake of the Salt Lake City Games bribes for votes scandal which saw four members expelled and several others sanctioned, refused to comment on what his reaction to 95-year-old Havelange’s abrupt resignation.

Rogge was insistent that instead of these cases showing that the system was still corrupt it showed exactly the opposite.

Hayatou — president of the Confederation of African Football since 1987 — was accused of receiving almost 25,000 Swiss francs in cash from ISL in 1995, a sum he claimed was for the 40th anniversary of CAF from a then sponsor.

However, the Ethics Commission remained sceptical about the end destination for the cash.

However, Rogge said the 67-year-old Cameroon national’s reprimand does not bar him from any IOC function.

Diack accepted that in 1993 he had received three cash payments of $30,000 and 30,000 French francs (7,680 Swiss francs) from ISL but it was paid by his friend ISL executive Jean-Marie Weber who felt sorry for him after his house burnt down in March of that year.

He denied that despite being a then IAAF vice-president he was involved in a marketing contract between ISL and the IAAF which was subsequently signed in June that year two months after the first two cash payments.

The Ethics Commission disputed the fact that he in his senior position could not have known about the negotiations but did take into account the traumatic effect the burning down of his house had had on him.