Last Sunday Riccardo Fraccari got elected as new President of the International Baseball Federation (IBAF) at the congress in Lausanne, Switzerland. His lone opponent John C. Ostermeyer withdrew his candidature shortly before the election. In an interview with Baseball.it Fraccari mentioned that the reason for stepping aside was the lack of support from the major Baseball countries. But the reports on the websites of the German, Swedish and Czech federations indicate that there was more than that.
An Australian newspaper might have the answers. Sean Parnell of “The Australian – The Heart of the Nation” was the author of three articles since Friday, which say that Ostermeyer pulled out of the running to be president because of allegations he misused more than $1.2 million of IBAF’s funds.
An excerpt from Friday’s article:
In the days before the election, Ostermeyer, 62, was the subject of emails alleging he had rorted his expenses, failed to account for project funds, and had even employed a lover. Some of the emails contained attachments purporting to show irregularities in hotel bookings, per diem claims, taxi charges and other expenses.
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On his return from Switzerland this week, Ostermeyer told The Australian he withdrew his nomination partly to protect the federation from further controversy, but also because he was “sick of all the rubbish, the politics, the innuendo”.
On Saturday Parnell wrote that the former IBAF staffer Fidel Breijo distributed an email accusing Ostermeyer for sacking him to cover up serious fraud and mismanagement at the organization. Ostermeyer denied these allegations among others.
Quote:
In an earlier email under his name, Breijo alleged he was forced out of the IBAF in December 2008 “when John Ostermeyer, afraid of what I’d discovered about the financial management in IBAF and because he had not (been) able to corrupt me, decided to dismiss me”.
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Breijo claimed the then-IBAF president, American Harvey Schiller, had ordered a review which “discovered a significant number of irregularities in accounting and management”.
Ostermeyer said Breijo was let go due to downsizing the staff from nine to three after Baseball’s removal from the Olympics.
In his third article on the topic, Parnell claimed that Ostermeyer was asked to stand aside from his position at the IBAF, while the organization considers the rorting allegations made against him. The article has also more information about the $1.2 million in expenses paid to Ostermeyer and says that the IBAF congress didn’t sign off on the financial report by Treasurer Rene Laforce.
Quote:
The IBAF congress signed off on a PricewaterhouseCoopers audit of its 2008 calender-year finances, despite it raising some concern over $1.2 million in expenses paid to Ostermeyer, who said he had used his private credit card to pay delegates’ travel and accommodation for the Beijing Olympics.
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The auditors said they were unable to obtain original receipts to support the expense claim, only copies, and “consequently, in the absence of information to assess the justification of this expenditure, we were unable to satisfy ourselves as to the validity of this expenditure”.
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Ostermeyer said he was not prepared to hand over original documents as he would need them to explain to the Australian Tax Office why he received a $1.2m transfer from a Swiss bank account.
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The congress did not sign off on a broader financial report by treasurer Rene Laforce, a Belgian who was the only re-elected executive member.
If only parts of these allegations are true, the International Baseball Federation has quite some explaining to do and needs to find a way to clear things up.
The Australian: “Australia’s world baseball kingpin, John Ostermeyer, embroiled in scandal”
The Australian: “Baseball scandal deepens”
The Australian: “Baseball boss told to step aside”
