Tokyo (AFP)
The president of the organizing committee for the Tokyo Olympic Games Yoshiro Mori is preparing to resign after the outcry provoked in Japan and abroad by his sexist remarks made last week.
According to sources close to the matter cited by the Japanese media on Thursday, Yoshiro Mori, 83, informed officials of his willingness to resign and to announce it during a meeting of the Tokyo-2020 organizing committee scheduled for Friday.
Tokyo-2020 did not react immediately.
Mr Mori, a former Japanese Prime Minister (2000-2001) known for his verbal slippages, said last week that women have difficulty speaking concisely in meetings, which is "annoying".
He awkwardly apologized the next day, while initially ruling out resigning.
An avalanche of criticism had followed in Japan and abroad.
Even sponsors of the Olympics, usually discreet, have stepped up in recent days, such as the automotive giant Toyota, also claiming that Mr. Mori's remarks were contrary to the Olympic spirit and the values they support.
At first, after Mr. Mori's apology, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) had deemed the case closed, before considering this week that his words were "completely inappropriate".
This scandal is a new thorn in the side of the organizers of the Tokyo Olympics, who were already struggling to revive enthusiasm for the event (23 July-8 August 2021), postponed last year because of the pandemic, while the global health context remains worrying.
- A former footballer to the rescue?
-
Athletes such as Japanese tennis star Naomi Osaka, volunteers involved in the organization of the Olympics, opposition officials in Japan and even members of embassy staff in Tokyo have all protested in various ways in recent days.
Tokyo governor Yuriko Koike also stepped up the pressure on Wednesday by announcing that she did not intend to attend a meeting of all Olympic stakeholders scheduled for later this month, considering the timing inopportune.
Launched a week ago, an online petition calling on those in charge of the Olympic Games not to stand idly by exceeded 146,500 signatures on Thursday.
According to several Japanese media, former footballer Saburo Kawabuchi, 84, could be appointed in place of Mr. Mori.
The president of Tokyo-2020 asked Mr. Kawabuchi on Thursday to succeed him, and the latter agreed, according to local media.
"If I am elected president, I will do my best," Kawabuchi told reporters after an hour-long interview with Mori, state broadcaster NHK reported.
As the first leader of the J-League (1991-2002) and then of the Japanese football federation from 2002 to 2008, Mr. Kawabuchi played a key role in the development of professional football in Japan and the popularization of the sport in the country.
- Precedents for Tokyo-2020 -
He later also chaired the Japan Basketball Federation, and currently serves as the symbolic mayor of the Olympic Village.
The Mori affair is a new episode in the tumultuous saga of the Tokyo Olympics, already marked by two resignations of senior officials in 2019.
In March 2019, the president of the Japanese Olympic Committee Tsunekazu Takeda, the great architect of Tokyo's victorious bid for the 2020 Olympics, announced his departure, officially because he had reached the age limit for his post.
But Mr. Takeda had above all been indicted a few months earlier by the French justice, which suspects him of having paid bribes to IOC members in 2013 to obtain their support for Tokyo's candidacy. .
A month later, it was the turn of the Japanese minister responsible for the Olympics, Yoshitaka Sakurada, to resign because of repeated blunders.
He had notably made remarks deemed shocking vis-à-vis the inhabitants of areas devastated by the tsunami of March 2011 in Japan, and had also previously said "disappointed", without showing the slightest compassion, when swimmer Rikako Ikee, great Japanese hope for an Olympic medal, had announced to suffer from leukemia.
kh-kaf-ras-etb / jr / dga
© 2021 AFP