16 Eye-Popping Examples Of Alleged Corruption At The Sochi Olympics

[Jefferson23]

A leading anti-corruption campaigner points fingers. posted on January 27, 2014 at 3:54am EST

When pressed about the 2014 Sochi Olympics’ record $51 billion price tag — a sum that is five times the amount spent on the last Winter Games in Vancouver and that dwarves the GDP of three-fifths of the world’s countries — Vladimir Putin has shrugged off allegations of corruption, insisting that the eye-popping figure simply reflects the cost of doing business in his new Russia.

“If anyone has such information, give it to us, please. I repeat once again, we will be grateful,” Putin said this month, denying an International Olympic Committee member’s recent claim that a third of the cost was siphoned away. “But so far there has been nothing but talk.”

A new report on the construction process released Monday by leading anti-corruption campaigner and opposition firebrand Alexey Navalny, however, intends to make him face facts.

According to Navalny’s investigation, shared exclusively with BuzzFeed prior to publication, Russia handed out massive contracts with no real competition to contractors who overcharged them by hundreds of millions of dollars and, almost without exception, has failed to make them face consequences.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/maxseddon/eye-popping-excerpts-from-a-report-alleging-corruption-at

Sochi 2014
Encyclopedia of Spending

We are proud that Sochi hosts the Winter Olympic Games. This is a unique sports event for everybody. However, officials turned Olympics into a source of their income. The Anti-Corruption Foundation proves that with figures and facts. Learn who cashed in on the most expensive Olympic games ever.

http://sochi.fbk.info/en/

[dipsydoodle]

1. Makes it sound just like the USA and the Iraq contracts

but on a reduced scale.

[Jefferson23]

2. Yes, corruption knows no bounds..Russia has a lot of issues with competence too..which

also goes back to the corruption issue for them.

[benld74]

3. A 7,000 seat hockey arena?!?!?

[Jefferson23]

4. Everyone needs one.

[Blue_Tires]

5. It's funny to see how many people are realizing all of a sudden

that the Olympics is a cash-grabbing kleptocracy of kickbacks and expense padding, and that modern Russia is has the biggest "favor-for-a-favor" economy in Europe.....

[Jefferson23]

6. Do you think historically Russia stands out from the crowd? I ask, because I don't know.

I don't mean to suggest corruption is unique to Russia, just wondered if you
knew if this level has been exposed to be as bad when other countries played hosts?

[Blue_Tires]

7. Well, every four years the graft bar seems to get set higher...

I was living in Atlanta when the summer games came -- There was plenty of graft and glad-handing then, but the dollar amounts are only a fraction of what gets spent today...

But the corruption all starts at the top, and by that I mean the IOC -- Because you have to pretty much sell your soul to even be a finalist for an Olympic bid, and everything after that is a vote auction...They play the role of the pimps and the nations are the whores....

[Jefferson23]

8. Ok, makes sense. I have read of problems about the IOC too but I have not followed

it very much at all. With Russia I have friends who have spent extensive amounts of time there
studying the language...so I would hear their perspective on the corruption and other political matters over the
years.

[yurbud]

9. why should we be surprised when the building of any sports stadium here is obvious corruption?

The pro sports team profits from public spending and the rest of us foot the bill.

The politicians who make it happen aren't idiots--they are bought.

We need to pull the plank out of our own eye before we look for specks in other countries.

[Jefferson23]

11. I think we can do both...the gentleman who keeps tabs on Russia's corruption is

a legit guy.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

10. When Russia went capitalist, no one had run a business there in 70 years...

except the Russian Mafia.

They're the ones who have REALLY prospered in the past 25 years, and to a large extent, they have continued their evil ways.