Ex-Tokyo 2020 bid chiefs deny wrongdoing

The Ex-President and Ex-Director of the Tokyo 2020 bidding process have denied any wrong doing in a strongly worded statement.

Tsunekazu Takeda and Nobumoto Higuchi sent a joint statement to the media after reports of an illegal payment.

The statement said: "As I was a member of the Tokyo 2020 Bid Committee, media reports have come to our attention claiming misconduct during our activities.  We would like to reaffirm that the Olympic Games 2020 were awarded to Tokyo as the result of a fair competition and as a result of the contents of our bid."

"The payments mentioned in the media were a legitimate consultant’s fee paid to the service we received from Mr.Tan’s company.  It followed a full and proper contract and the monies were fully audited by Ernst & Young ShinNihon LLC."

"The Tokyo 2020 Bid Committee can confirm that it paid an amount for the professional services received for the following consultation work including; the planning of the bid; tutoring on presentation practice; advices for international lobbying communications; and service for information and media analysis.  All these services were properly contracted using accepted business practices."

"The firm contracted for this work had good credentials and references and were experts on Asian and Arabic and we were fully satisfied with the service we received from them. Furthermore, the amounts paid were in our opinion proper and adequate for the services provided and gave no cause for suspicion at the time."