PARIS: French investigators suspect that bribes were paid for Rio de Janeiro to be awarded the 2016 Olympic Games, Le Monde newspaper reported on Friday.
The International Olympic Committee said it would contact French authorities over the allegations.
The IOC also said its ethics committee was investigating a payment made to IOC member Frankie Fredericks before Rio was awarded the Games in 2009.
French investigators “have concrete elements to doubt the process to award the Olympic Games. Rio is alleged to have cheated,” Le Monde said.
Three days before the IOC awarded the Games to Rio on October 2, 2009, Brazilian businessman Arthur Cesar Menezes Soares Filho paid $1.5 million to the son of shamed former international athletics chief Lamine Diack.
Another payment of $500,000 was made around the same time to another account belonging to the son, Papa Massata Diack, in Russia.
Diack senior, ex-president of the International Association of Athletics Associations, and his son already face bribery charges in France over millions of dollars paid to cover up doping failures by Russian athletes.
The IAAF president is traditionally one of the most powerful members of the IOC.
French prosecutors in the Diack case have already announced that they are investigating the attribution of the 2016 Games to Rio and 2020 to Tokyo. Both cities have denied any wrongdoing.
Rio Olympics spokesman Mario Andrada told AFP that the city was chosen fairly.
Le Monde said investigators have established that a holding company belonging to the Brazilian businessman paid $1.5 million to a company set up by Papa Massata Diack, a marketing consultant for the IAAF.
The IOC noted the “serious allegations” made by Le Monde, said IOC spokesman Mark Adams, and “remains fully committed to clarifying this situation, working in cooperation with the prosecutor.”
