Tapio Korjus has lobbied millions in funding for a sports crisis organization that even the IOC doesn’t trust

WOA defines itself as a global organization that supports the status and networking of Olympic athletes. There have been plans on the table to establish a WOA office or some kind of branch at the Olympic Stadium.

According to sources, Korjus, 65,’s lobbying work has been active, even though WOA’s serious management and financial problems have been publicly known.

The International Olympic Committee IOC has decided to terminate cooperation with the organization for the reasons mentioned above.

For the project funding of 1.5 million euros has been applied for from the City of Helsinki and the Ministry of Education and Culture (OKM). The Finnish Olympic Committee has been asked to support the project.

The presentation has aroused astonishment, because no one seems to have understood what WOA would actually do in Finland and why its activities should be built here.

WOA’s funding has practically depended on the IOC. Why should the crisis organization’s million-dollar bill suddenly be thrust upon Finnish taxpayers?

The City of Helsinki, the Olympic Committee and the Ministry of Education and Culture say that the lobbying work for WOA was active above all in the spring and early summer. These parties have been convinced that WOA already knew about the threat in the spring, which materialized in July.

That’s when the IOC decided to end cooperation with WOA. At the same time, it announced that in the future it will manage the interests of Olympic athletes itself – without WOA.

It did not restrain WOA’s attempt to reach Finland. The city of Helsinki confirms that WOA made it its “most recent cooperation proposal” in September – that is, after the end of IOC support.

“This kind of contact has come to us”, from the mayor of Helsinki Daniel Sazonovin assistant Oskari Heinonen says.

Earlier, Sazonov commented on the negotiation situation as follows:

“During the past year, the city of Helsinki has been contacted about a project related to the World Olympians Association”, he confirms in his email reply.

Tapio Korjus admits that he has been involved in WOA’s Finland discussions since the beginning of the year.

According to Korjus, WOA contacted him as the chairman of Suomen Olympiavoittajat ry, because there is no WOA national organization of Olympic athletes in Finland.

“They asked for help in opening various contacts in Helsinki, the ministry, Espoo, Vantaa, the University of Helsinki, Aalto University and the business field,” says Korjus in his email reply.

According to Korjus, there are approximately 1,350 living Olympic athletes in Finland. There are 115 countries as members of WOA.

“I agreed to help WOA with contacts, but I have not been a negotiating or discussion party in this matter. Therefore, I have no mandate to comment on the matter,” says Korjus.

We asked Korjus a bunch of questions by email. He did not answer questions about public funding, WOA’s concrete operations in Finland, or the organization’s administrative, financial and control problems raised by the IOC.

COOK:n in a 2025 independent investigation, more than half of WOA’s audited bank payments and all audited credit card payments deviated in some way from the organization’s own rules or procedures.

The investigation also revealed missing documents, unclear cash withdrawals, tax risks and deficiencies in internal control.

The most unusual case involved a $10,000 cash withdrawal. That left $7,531 for WOA’s then CEO Mike Miller’s in possession. Miller later said he did not know what happened to the money. He eventually paid the amount back from his own savings.

WOA defended itself by appealing to the “clean audit opinions” of PwC (one of the world’s largest auditing companies) – and got another chance in the fall of 2025.

In the new cooperation agreement, the organization committed itself to the principles of good governance. The IOC’s financial support was tied to goals and performance metrics.

However, in July 2026, the IOC measure was met. According to it, serious concerns had continued, and insufficient corrective actions had been taken, for example in internal control.

In addition, in the opinion of the IOC, the current WOA model no longer sufficiently served the interests of Olympic athletes. The IOC itself wanted to strengthen direct contact with the Olympic athletes and reevaluate how their representation should be organized in the future.

WOA: n According to editorial sources, there have been various spectacular promises in the Suomi visions.

A former Unesco official painted, for example, the possibilities of organizing Unesco congresses in Finland. OKM was not convinced by this, because according to it, the Unesco background of the person in question was from the 1990s.

The event organized by WOA in Turkey, which had been marketed as an influential international meeting, also caused consternation. However, according to official sources, the influential guests did not come, and the event was mainly a meeting of ex-Olympic athletes.

“If the Olympic athletes want to meet each other, it will certainly be possible without public funding,” the official source underlines.

We asked the chairman of WOA Pernilla from Wiberg the same questions as from Korjukse, and also about the ambiguities presented by the IOC.

“At this stage, we do not comment on confidential discussions, unfinished plans or internal matters,” the former alpine skiing star said.

Financing model has lived. In the initial phase, 1.5 million euros were requested directly from the city of Helsinki to move WOA’s office to Finland.

Since then, the plan was modified so that EUR 650,000 of the funding would come from the Ministry of Education and Culture, EUR 650,000 from Helsinki, and EUR 100,000 from both Espoo and Vantaa.

When the funding has been in a headwind, an attempt was made to direct the money through the Stadion Foundation, which operates at the Olympic Stadium. It would have acted as a financial manager and channeled the funds further into WOA’s operations in Finland.

We asked the foundation’s CEO From Ari Kuokkaswhether the foundation is involved in WOA’s Finland project and whether public funding is intended to be channeled through it. Kuokkanen did not answer these questions.

“We cannot comment on matters on behalf of WOA. In accordance with our principle, we do not comment on confidential discussions with different parties before making decisions,” Kuokkanen said.

Olympic Organization The connection to Finland does not seem strong. Mayor Sazonov says that Helsinki “could even consider” the project only if OKM and the Olympic Committee were strongly involved.

“There have been no indications of this,” he emphasizes.

OKM’s special expert Hannu Tolonen still wondering about the lack of concreteness.

“It was not clear from the presentation what WOA would have done in Finland and what public money would have received in return,” he reasons.

The funding envisaged by the Kohu organization would drastically differ from the amounts with which the state usually supports international sports organizations operating in Finland. According to OKM, subsidies only amount to tens of thousands of euros.

“The government does not have the kind of funds that would be suitable for financing such a project,” Tolonen sums up.

Chairman of the Olympic Committee Petteri Kilpinen not enthusiastic about the show at all.

“The information received from the IOC about the ambiguities related to WOA’s activities made the Olympic Committee take a negative view of the project. The Olympic Committee has made it clear that it is not involved in the project,” he says.

Korjus’ lobbying work has been described as diligent. For this reason, we asked him further questions regarding the motives.

“Now I haven’t actually brought WOA to Finland, but I have explained the background and talked about the benefits of the matter to the parties I contacted,” says Korjus.

According to Korjus, his motivation has been to improve the status of Olympic athletes.

“I see a lot of opportunities in the fact that the joint global organization of Olympic athletes has chosen Finland as one of the options for the future headquarters of its operations and the home of various projects,” he reasons.

“Finland and Helsinki could benefit, among other things, from various meetings and global conferences that WOA develops together with UNESCO – as well as from various research projects and the strengthening of the international network of sports.”

“Furthermore, the Olympic Stadium is naturally the ‘Home of Olympians’, whose reputation is widely known around the world.”