Japan Prosecutors Investigate Sponsor Payments to Olympic Organizing Board Member

Tokyo prosecutors are investigating payments from clothing retailer AOKI Holdings, an Olympic sponsoring company, to a company run by a former Tokyo 2020 Organizing Committee board member, Japanese media reported on Wednesday.

The Yomiuri newspaper said the investigation was looking into whether payments of at least 45 million yen between 2017 and 2021 to a company run by Haruyuki Takahashi violated a law banning public officials from receiving cash in in relation to their positions.

The members of the organizing committee’s board were considered quasi-civil servants.

Reuters was unable to establish contact details for Takahashi, a former executive at advertising agency Dentsu Inc.

However, Takahashi was quoted by the Nikkei business newspaper as saying that his company received fees for providing sports-related consulting to AOKI. As a board member, he was not involved in matters that concerned anyone’s financial interests, including the sale of official licensed products, he told the paper.

The Tokyo District Attorney’s Office said it would not comment on an individual case.

AOKI said the media reports were not based on anything the company had announced and declined to comment further.

As an “official supporter” of the Tokyo Games, AOKI supplied the referees’ uniforms and sold licensed products such as jackets with Olympic emblems.

Reuters reported in March 2020 that Takahashi received more than $8 million in 2013 and 2014 by the Tokyo Olympic bid committee for undisclosed activities.

At the time, he told Reuters his job included lobbying members of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and said there was nothing improper with the payments he received or the way he used the money.

In late 2020, IOC chief Thomas Bach said that no rules of the body had been broken by the payments.