File picture of Ivan Slavkov during a mass in Sofia praying for the success of Bulgarian athletes in Athens

Athens, Aug. 7 (Reuters): Ivan Slavkov, the Bulgarian International Olympic Committee (IOC) member, was suspended on Saturday following allegations of corruption in a television documentary broadcast this week.

IOC president Jacques Rogge said: “You see before you an angry man. To say I am disappointed, I am more than disappointed, I am an angry man.”

The IOC said the executive board had decided to “provisionally deprive Ivan Slavkov of all the rights, prerogatives and functions deriving from his membership of the IOC throughout the inquiry”.

Slavkov’s accreditation to the Olympic Games which start on Friday in Athens was immediately withdrawn. Rogge said that the investigation by the IOC’s ethics committee into Slavkov had been set underway.

“Unfortunately we (have) had to discuss the dark and sombre side of sport...this is never pleasant but this (action) shows the resolve of the IOC to have zero tolerance of corruption.

“I am angry with the behaviour of some people. I am angry because the behaviour of some is harming a beautiful movement... a movement of volunteers who love sport.

“I can assure you, under my leadership, the IOC will be 100 per cent respectful of the rules.”

Slavkov and Serbian sports agent Goran Takach were shown in a one-hour programme broadcast in Britain by the BBC on Wednesday night discussing ways to secure votes for choosing the site of the 2012 Games with undercover journalists posing as business agents.

Three others close to the Olympic movement and familiar with the bidding process also featured in the documentary. Takach, Gabor Komyathy, Mahmood El Farnawani and director general of the Olympic Council of Asia, Muttaleb Ahmad, were also condemned by the IOC.

The IOC said it would “withdraw the accreditation, if they exist, immediately and for the duration of the Olympic Games” of the four agents.

“They are persona non grata within the Olympic movement,” Rogge said.

Slavkov, also the president of Bulgaria’s football association, vowed earlier this week to fight to clear his name and that of his country.

Bulgarian Olympic Committee spokeswoman Zdravka Yordanova, an Olympic rowing champion at the Montreal 1976 Games, criticised the IOC’s timing of the suspension.

“Terrible, especially before the Games. It was not necessary to impose such a strict measure but could have been delayed for the inquiry to be completed,” she said.

“I think that the whole Olympic delegation (of Bulgaria) will be very disappointed,” Yordanova said.

The 64-year-old Slavkov was accused in the 1998 Salt Lake City voting bribe scandal that shook the Olympic community but was later cleared.

The IOC investigation into the Salt Lake corruption scandal led to ten IOC members resigning or being expelled in connection with bribery and to a tightening of the rules governing contact between IOC members and bidding cities.

It resulted in the ethics committee being set up.

Slavkov has said he and Takach had tried to pull a reverse-sting operation to catch what they thought were “corrupters” of the Games bidding process.

London, Paris, New York, Madrid and Moscow are on the shortlist for the 2012 Games. The host city will be named in July 2005 after a vote by IOC members.

Slavkov’s suspension was a “provisional measure” Rogge said, adding that the investigation into the Bulgarian member was ongoing. Rogge would not speculate how long the inquiry would last.