Farewell to legendary reporter Jennings

TOKYO — A great journalist died recently. His name was Andrew Jennings, a one time BBC reporter from Scotland, who became famous for his investigative reporting about major corruption in the IOC and FIFA

"If you had to put only one name to the revolution of the international sports debate over the past 30 years … that name and that person would be Andrew Jennings," wrote Jens Sejer Andersen, director of the sports integrity campaign group Play The Game. (Inside The Games)

Jennings , who died at age 78  on January 8, this year of a sudden illness, authored several influential  books about the Olympics. The first was  The Lords of the Rings, published in 1992, co-authored with Vyv Simson.  The book revealed how positive drug tests were concealed so that the Olympic Games could be sold as ‘clean’ to sponsors. It uncovered the beginnings of what became the gigantic ISL marketing contracts scandal and the $100 million worth of bribes and kickbacks paid to sports officials.  It also revealed  IOC president Juan Antonio Samaranch to be a secret Fascist., The book made Samaranch , in turn,  so angry he hacked Jennings’ phone, and persuaded authorities to issue both authors a five-day suspended jail sentence for defamation of the IOC. They co-authors also received a lengthy ban from IOC events.