IOC tackles Iraq's bloody sporting legacy

BAGHDAD - An International Olympic Committee delegation has sent a mission to Baghdad to help rebuild an Iraqi sports movement dominated -- and brutalised -- for a decade by Saddam Hussein's son Uday.

Uday turned the Iraqi Olympic Committee into an instrument of state coercion but he remained recognised internationally as its head before Iraq's membership was suspended two weeks ago, following his father's overthrow on April 9.

"We are here to find interlocutors and identify their legitimacy as a step toward the reconstruction of Iraq's National Olympic Committee," Michel Filliau, a senior IOC administrator, told Reuters on Thursday.

Filliau said his delegation, which arrived earlier this week, was meeting many Iraqis involved in sport, but declined to identify them. He said the mission was preliminary and another delegation would come to Baghdad in June.

Iraq was a sporting power in the Middle East until UN sanctions were imposed for its 1990 invasion of Kuwait. Spending by Saddam on facilities and training helped build a football team that reached the 1986 World Cup finals.

But Uday ran the now defunct Iraqi Olympic Committee from a vast compound in Baghdad as a fiefdom that extended far beyond normal sporting activities.

Members of Iraq's national football team say Uday jailed and tortured players and coaches according to his whim, and turned the committee into a financial racket.

The IOC, which critics accuse of failing to act on complaints about the Iraqi committee under Uday, has said it will exclude former members involved in abuse.

"No person involved in any abuse committed by the previous administration will be allowed to participate in the reconstruction of the NOC," says a statement on the IOC website. "The IOC strongly condemns all acts of abuse carried out or ordered by the former president of the NOC against athletes."

A new Iraqi Olympic Committee may already be in the making.

Sharar Haidar, an international footballer imprisoned by Uday, has helped organise a meeting which around 400 athletes are expected to attend in Baghdad on Friday.

- REUTERS

Herald Feature: Iraq