Salt Lake Olympics losing sponsors

Company spokesman John McKeegan on Sunday blamed the decision on internal disagreements about how to link the company's many brands under a sponsorship umbrella in time for the Salt Lake City Games. But he acknowledged that Olympic bribery was a factor.

''We can't say that it didn't have anything to do with it,'' McKeegan said. ''It was certainly in the background.''

The Salt Lake scandal sparked several investigations after it was revealed the city's bid committee offered $1.2 million in cash, scholarships and other gifts to International Olympic Committee members and their relatives during the successful campaign to win the games.

Ten IOC members have been removed or have resigned after being linked to the cash payments and other vote-buying inducements. Ten others have been censured or warned about their actions in the worst ethics scandal in the history of the modern Olympics.

Johnson & Johnson, a health care product company in New Brunswick, N.J., had just signed a letter of intent to increase financial support when the bribery accusations surfaced late last year.

''The sponsors that we talk to are assessing the environment in which we find ourselves every single day,'' said John Krimsky, deputy secretary general of the U.S. Olympic Committee and the games' chief fund-raising officer. ''And when they have to invest millions of dollars and the reputation of their products and services they have to be very, very careful.''

Though Johnson & Johnson has never been a full sponsor for the games, it has provided its products to athletes through the USOC for about 20 years. McKeegan said that relationship would continue.

Krimsky said the company pulled back in January or February, before Olympic organizations finished investigating and implementing reforms. And he added that the door is still open for an agreement for 2002 because company officials have since met with Salt Lake Organizing Committee head Mitt Romney.

But since the revelation that Salt Lake bid executives wooed IOC members with bribes, no new sponsors have signed on.

04-20-99