TOKYO: A former Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics organizing committee executive who has been arrested on corruption charges was unhappy with his non-paid part-time position, sources familiar with the matter said Thursday.

Haruyuki Takahashi, 78, had said, “I wish I hadn’t assumed the (Tokyo Games) executive post,” according to the sources.

Takahashi is suspected to have received bribes from five companies — apparel firm Aoki Holdings Inc., publisher Kadokawa Corp., advertising firms Daiko Advertising Inc. and ADK Holdings Inc., and stuffed toy manufacturer Sun Arrow Inc. — in return for giving favors to them.

The alleged bribes in the corruption cases total some 196 million yen.

Takahashi is believed to have helped Daiko and ADK become partner agencies of Dentsu Inc., which was the Tokyo Games’ exclusive agency, as well as Aoki Holdings become a sponsor of the Games.

Both Takahashi and Dentsu played an important role in Tokyo’s efforts to host the Games. The company was sending officials to work for the Japanese Olympic Committee for free.

In April 2014, Dentsu was selected as the exclusive agency, as widely expected. Takahashi became a committee executive soon after that.

“Takahashi and Dentsu had ideas and know-how that other advertising agencies didn’t have,” a senior official of a major advertising agency said.

Takahashi and Dentsu were expected to increase revenues from sponsorship fees, in order to reduce burdens on the Japanese government and Tokyo.

Takahashi is said to be the architect of a system to allow multiple companies in each industry to become sponsors of the Tokyo Games, unlike the conventional one-company-from-one-industry policy. To realize the system, he negotiated with the International Olympic Committee.

Takahashi is also said to have made Dentsu accept a partner agency system to recommission Tokyo Games-related operations.

“Dentsu initially rejected (the system) as (the system) was feared to reduce its possible profits from new clients it acquired through the Games, but it couldn’t work against Takahashi,” an informed source said.

“Marketing operations for the Games hardly worked without Takahashi,” a senior official of another major advertising agency said. “We had an impression that Takahashi was a person who had a huge influence on Dentsu, rather than a committee executive.”

In the end, the Tokyo Games sponsorship fee revenues came to 376.1 billion yen, collected from 68 companies.

A senior official of a different ad agency suspects that Takahashi presented sponsorship fees that could not be examined to check whether they were reasonable or not and received excessive kickbacks.

Without such kickbacks, the organizing committee could have had larger revenues, the ad firm official argued. “As a public figure, Takahashi had a duty to find sponsors,” the official said. “His reception of kickbacks meant that he embezzled profits that the state would have gained.”

JIJI Press