2020 Olympic bid team defend payout

The leader of Japan’s bid for the 2020 Summer Olympics and other Japanese officials said the company at the centre of questions raised about payments by the bid committee was a legitimate firm and not a paper company.

The Guardian newspaper reported last week that the Tokyo bid team made payments totalling more than $2m to a Singapore bank account it said was linked to Papa Massata Diack, son of disgraced former international athletics chief Lamine Diack.

Japanese bidding officials said the payments were legitimate consultants’ fees that had been checked by auditors.