Zein El-Abdin Mohamed Ahmed Abdel Gadir

Zein El-Abdin Mohamed Ahmed Abdel Gadir studied at the Sudan Military Academy and later became a career military man, rising to the rank of General. He founded the Sudanese Parachute Regiment in 1963, was a member of the Revolutionary Command Council in 1969, and within the Sudanese government served as Minister of Animal Resources from 1970-72; as Minister for Youth, Sport, and Social Affairs (1974-80); as secretary of the Department of Organization, Administration and Presidential Affairs (1980-82), and was first secretary of the Sudanese Socialist Union from 1983-86. In sports administration he was President of the Sudanese Olympic Committee from 1980-87, President of the National Federation for Popular Sports from 1978-87, and was the founder of the Federation for School Sports.

General Abdel Gadir is best known for his Olympic involvement as being the only IOC Member to be expelled twice from the organization. He was expelled in 1987 after missing three consecutive meetings without sufficient excuse. The excuse, had he given it, would have been that he was in prison after serving on the wrong side of a late 1980s military coup d’etat in the Sudan. After his release from prison he was again elected to the IOC, but his membership came a cropper during the 1999 Olympic Bribery Scandal, when the Salt Lake City Organizing Committee Board of Ethics report noted that direct payments were requested from one of the consultants to Zema Abdel Gadir, who was said to be the daughter of the Sudanese IOC Member, General Zein El-Abdin Mohamed Ahmed Abdel Gadir. However, it was discovered that General Abdel Gadir has no daughter. (Note Abdel Gadir’s initials – Z.E.M.A. Abdel Gadir). Direct payments were also noted to Abdel Gadir’s son, Zuhair Gadir. After the various reports into the Olympic Bribery Scandal were announced, Abdel Gadir was expelled again from the IOC in 1999.