``I was there (in 1986) and saw it, IOC members being offered women and two accepting,'' Prince Frederic Von Saxe-Lauenberg, a member of the Pierre De Coubertin International Committee (PDCIC), told Associated Press yesterday.

He said the two were African members, but declined to name them. He said six other IOC members present in 1986 in Amsterdam on a site inspection visit had declined the offer.

``Prostitutes were offered (in 1986) to several IOC members and they took it for granted they would be offered,'' he said in a telephone interview. ``They ask if there was anything else you could offer.'' Von Saxe-Lauenberg also claimed the IOC members were given video cassette recorders and their wives were offered diamond broaches by the Amsterdam committee.

RoelWalraven, a member of Amsterdam's bid committee, admitted that IOC members had been given VCRs. But he stopped there. ``I know nothing about visits to brothels or diamonds in hotel rooms,'' he said. ``But it was standard practice to pamper IOC members.''

Amsterdam lost the bid for the 1992 Games, which were awarded to Barcelona.

Allegations of sexual favours being offered to IOC members have long been rumoured, but British-born Von Saxe-Lauenberg is among the first to speak out.

``It's been going on for quite a while, since 1958 when Tokyo offered geisha girls to win the Games in 1964. It's quite old,'' he said. He said IOC members Ashwini Kumar of India and Jan Staubo of Norway were offered sexual favours in the 1986 incident, but declined.

``I have several times had such offers in connection with visits to applicant cities,'' Staubo was quoted as saying to Norway's largest newspaper Verdens Gang. In a related development, the Swedish newspaper Lanstidningen quoted former vice-mayor ofOstersund as saying she had been mistaken for a prostitute by an unnamed, visiting IOC member. ``He thought I was part of the entertainment, if I do say so, until I told him I was vice-mayor,'' Gun-Britt Maartensson told the paper.

Samaranch received favours:

Japan's Olympic city of Nagano gave IOC supremo Juan Antonio Samaranch a gift of a sword a month before being chosen as host for the 1998 Winter Games. The Asahi's evening edition report from Tokyo said the sword was worth about $18,000, easily exceeding the 200-dollar limit set by the IOC code of ethics on such gifts.

ORCHESTRATED OFFER: A Melbourne orchestra held a special concert so the daughter of a top IOC member could show off her musical talents, an official of Melbourne's failed 1996 Olympic bid said today. Novelist Shane Maloney said, in Melbourne, the bidding committee encouraged the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra to invite the daughter of South Korean IOC member Kim Yong-Un to. Kim is one of IOC's most powerful membersand has been mentioned as a possible successor to Samaranch.

Maloney, the organiser of cultural events for the Melbourne bid, said he believed the arrangement to play ``oiled the wheels of commerce in the Olympic bidding process.''

IOC REPORT RECOMMENDS EXPELLING GUILTY

London: A report on the Salt Lake City 2002 Winter Olympics bribery scandal has recommended disciplinary action including expulsion for up to 16 IOC members, the Wall Street Journal reported today.

In a front-page article, the paper said Canadian IOC member and Montreal lawyer Richard Pound had drafted a report for delivery to the IOC this weekend.

According to a draft copy, it will recommend disciplinary action, including expulsion, for perhaps as many as 16 members of the IOC for...violating the Olympic ethos of fair play by accepting more than $780,000 in payments and gifts from Salt Lake City during, and after, that city's ultimately successful effort to win the right to host the 2002 winter Games, the articlesaid.

Moreover, the draft report makes it clear the issue of influence-peddling by cities seeking the Olympic dates back to the early 1980s and has included efforts by agents to `sell' IOC votes in exchange for millions of dollars.

The paper said the report highlighted the activities of two agents, or middlemen.

``One agent, hopping between hotel rooms at IOC gatherings in Nagano (Japan) and Seville (Spain) told officials from the bidding city of Sion, Switzerland, that `for $2 million he could obtain 25 votes.' ``He even offered a payment schedule: two-thirds of the money during the bid process, the rest if the Games are awarded to the city.

``Another agent implicated in the report promised to provide nine European votes at $50,000 to $100,000 a vote,'' it said.