U.S.-Asia Law Institute

The 2021 Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games were initially seen as a testament to resilience as the world recovered from the COVID-19 pandemic. But this image was sullied by subsequent allegations of widespread bribery and price-fixing involving a director of the Organizing Committee, major sponsors, and contractors. Professor Masayuki Tamaruya of the University of Tokyo will discuss why international sports financing so often produces corruption scandals, perennial challenges in both international and domestic sports governance, and Japan’s efforts to improve transparency and compliance in its own sports federations and university sports – with mixed results.