Leo Wallner to Quit Austrian Olympic Committee

Leo Wallner, president of the Austrian Olympic Committee, plans to resign in the wake of a financial scandal. (Getty Images)

The Austrian Olympic Committee confirms to Around the Rings that president Leo Wallner will tender his resignation at a board meeting Sept. 23.

His plans to quit the organization after nearly 20 years in the post follow a damaging financial scandal that appears to have made his position untenable.

Wallner issued a brief statement Friday stating his intention to step down but he was not available for comment. According to his spokeswoman, Wallner felt that “new times are starting and it is necessary to have new people there.”

In his statement, he talked about the need to restructure the AOC , saying plans would be discussed at the board meeting. With the Vancouver Olympics less than six months away, new and strong leadership seems vital to improving the AOC’s battered image and medal hopes.

“I want to make clear that after 20 years I won’t step back to leave the AOC alone with its problems,” Wallner added in the statement. “I want to bear the responsibility and will do everything to help the AOC in this very difficult time.”

Austrian sports minister Norbert Darabos has called for Wallner to quit and said it was time for a "generation change" at the helm of the committee.

"Leo Wallner's resignation is the right step in this situation that is so difficult for the Olympic movement," Darabos was quoted in an AP report Friday. "I've got the idea that finally a rethinking is taking place."

An extraordinary general assembly of the AOC, meeting in October, is expected to accept Wallner’s resignation and ratify plans for wholesale changes in personnel at the AOC.

Investigations over financial mismanagement have involved Heinz Jungwirth, the disgraced former secretary general, Erwin Roth, a lobbyist for the committee’s failed Salzburg 2014The Austrian Olympic Committee plans to review the finances of the failed Salzburg 2014 Olympic bid. (Getty Images)bid, and three others since February.

Wallner, 73, has been dragged into investigations about how $1.7 million of AOC money was allocated to Roth.

The charges against Wallner, president of the AOC since 1990, are that he failed to properly monitor the money’s use, when it was paid to Roth. Wallner has proclaimed his innocence and reportedly said the charges from prosecutors were "gross deceptions". He admitted that he did not know about the large figure paid to Roth’s company but said he was aware Roth was working for the bid and being paid by the AOC.

Roth has declined to comment to ATR about the issue. But he told Austrian media this week that money was paid to his company and was only used for legitimate purposes, adding that he did not draw a salary from it.

Jungwirth said this week he was innocent and that the payments to Roth were legitimate. Jungwirth quit his post at the AOC in February after weeks of controversy over allegations of mismanaged monies from the Salzburg 2014 Olympics bid that was eventually won by Sochi. About $200,000 reportedly went missing in transactions between the AOC and a private firm signed up to assist in finding bid sponsors.

Wallner’s resignation could bring to an end a troubled few years for the Austrian Olympic Committee. Its image took a severe knock following the involvement of coaches and officials in the blood doping scandal of the Turin Olympics.

In July, the AOC lifted a lifetime ban for five biathlon coaches and trainers involved in the scandal so they could be nominated for credentials at the Vancouver Olympics. The coaches and trainers were part of a larger group of officials named in a scathing 2007 report by an IOC disciplinary commission. The IOC levied a $1 million fine on the AOC, actually paid by the Austrian Ski Federation.

With reporting from Mark Bisson.

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