Simon Walsh, a British-based freelance journalist and consultant, was stripped of his media accrediation yesterday and refused entry to the final IOC press conference because Rio officials claimed he had lied about who he was working for.

 

Walsh was accredited here for Spanish news agency EFE but Rio alleged he had actually been sent by Madrid to provide intelligence reports.

 

Mike Lee, the director of communications during London's bid to host the 2012 Olympics, who is working as a consultant for Rio on strategy and media, said that Walsh had claimed he was the London correspondent of EFE working to its bureau in Madrid.

 

Lee said that suspicions had been first aroused when the Rio-based correspondent of EFE claimed that he was not affiliated to them and they did not know him.

 

Walsh had then allegedly been unable to produce a press card or business card and refused to allow Lee to speak to EFE to confirm his credentials.

 

A good source had then confirmed to Rio that he was working for a London-based marketing agency involved in promoting Madrid's candidature for the 2016 Olympics.

 

Walsh's name regularly appears at the foot of press releases sent to the international media by Madrid 2016 as a point of contact.

 

Indeed, it appeared on one sent out on April 24 - just three days before the IOC Evaluation Commission visit to Rio began.

 

Rio are particularly angry that Walsh, along with insidethegames, was invited to meet Brazil's President, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, an invitiation withdrawn when Government officials raised concerns.

 

Lee told insidethegames: "We are considering taking it up with the IOC Ethics Commission and Madrid 2016.

 

"Everybody knows that people sometimes travel for a mixture of journalistic reasons and other projects that they are working on, even occasionally for other bid cities and that is relatively open.

 

"What is so incorrect about the way he has acted is his deliberate and inconsistent attempts to mislead Rio 2016 - to lie to us basically - and that is a serious matter in the environment of a bid."

 

The Ethics Commission was formed in 1999 and is an independent body of nine members whose mission, the IOC claim, "is to be the guardian of the ethical principles of the Olympic Movement".

 

It is headed by Youssoupha Ndiaye, a judge in Senegal, and includes former United Nations General Secretary Javier Perez De Cuellar.

 

They have the ultimate sanction to ban Madrid from bidding for the Games, although in this case a warning would probably be the most severe punishment.

 

Walsh told insidethegames: "I was accredited by Rio 2016 as a journalist with an international news agency - that's why I'm here."

 

Duncan Mackay is the publisher and editor of insidethegames