Real estate deal – new allegations against ÖOC board

This time it is about the purchase and sale of real estate belonging to the former ÖOC General Secretary, who was convicted more than ten years ago for offenses in his long-standing position in the Austrian Olympic Committee (ÖOC). His successor Peter Mennel rejected widespread “untruths” about the real estate deal as “baseless”.

The ÖOC acquired the former official’s riding facility, stables and home from his personal bankruptcy estate in 2014 and later sold it on in order to keep the damage to the organization as low as possible.

As Mennel stated in a statement, “the independent exploitation of the property resulted in a book profit of a good 700,000 euros”. The liquidation by the liquidator would have brought significantly less for the ÖOC as a creditor.

Regarding the new accusations, Mennel emphasized that, significantly, the authors in this case would not admit responsibility and would again act under the cover of anonymity. The previous week, an anonymous criminal complaint for serious fraud against Mennel and against the ÖOC leadership around President Karl Stoss for aiding and abetting it had become public.

The presumption of innocence also applies to them in this case. At the center of the accusation is a crowdfunding platform whose balance sheet losses are said to have been covered with ÖOC club assets. As a result, the ÖOC members were damaged by more than 400,000 euros, as the complaint claims. The ÖOC is now taking legal action against the allegations.

The new election of the board of directors around the newly running President Stoss, which has long been overdue due to postponements, is scheduled for Friday at an ÖOC general meeting in Vienna. However, it is questionable whether this will actually be held given the events of the past few days. On Tuesday, the ÖOC continued to assume that the election would be held as planned, the APA said.

An arbitration tribunal could possibly prevent this. The committee set up to clarify the existence of the ÖOC election proposal, which has been questioned by some sports associations, is scheduled to meet before election day.