This coming weekend, Husain Al-Musallam will host the General Assembly of the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) in Kuwait City. IOC president Thomas Bach is expected to attend. Of course, Kirsty Coventry, president-elect of the IOC, with the active support of the unofficial olympic champion of corruption, Al-Musallam, and other big names from the World Aquatics circle, will also be there. Dozens of other IOC members are expected in Kuwait, as well as various billionaires and members of Olympic billionaire dynasties from Qatar, India and Saudi Arabia, some of whom hold high-ranking positions in sport.
The OCA summit will of course also focus on the 2036 and 2040 Summer Olympics, which the Ambani clan and other modigarchs as well as the Al-Thani family from Qatar are fighting for. Sheikh Joaan Bin Hamad Al-Thani, ANOC's senior vice president and president of the Qatar Olympic Committee (QOC), will certainly jet over to Kuwait.
Who knows, maybe Bach and Coventry want to discuss the final deal with Qatar and the Ambanis in Kuwait? There's a lot going on behind the scenes. Coventry, who has been extremely supported by the Ambanis for years, seems to be indebted to them. We'll see.
Will the Emir of Qatar, IOC member Tamim Bin Hamad Al-Thani, have to shelve Doha's Olympic bid for the fourth time under dubious circumstances? After 2008, 2011 and 2021, following three extremely questionable and highly suspicious decisions by the IOC Executive Board?
Expect amazing™.
Jens Weinreich
In any case, the prospects for all kinds of deals are bright for Husain Al-Musallam. Many sides (including the Al-Thanis and the Ambani clan) are fighting to guide and control him. So, he continues to enjoy his role including a kind of protection (from prosecution and annoying ethics investigations) and, of course, a fabulous income for decades.
Correction, 22 August 2026: The teaser for this article originally stated that Husain Al-Musallam had distributed bribes using funds from the OCA and ANOC and was attempting to save himself from a precarious situation by exploiting the 2036 Olympic bid within the OCA. This pointing is regrettable and has been corrected. The facts are correctly described in the article itself. Al-Musallam was asked to comment on this article, as he has been on numerous other occasions over the past decade and a half. He did not respond. This, too, is accurately reported in the article. On 8 August 2026, a lawyer submitted the following statement on his behalf: “At no time has he misused OCA or ANOC funds, never paid, offered or arranged bribes, never brokered Olympic bids, and does not enjoy any immunity from prosecution or disciplinary proceedings.”
