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In this story:

• Salt Lake officials welcome changes
• Samaranch to seek vote of confidence
• African, South American members tapped for removal
• New site selection process recommended
• Related stories and sites

LAUSANNE, Switzerland (CNN) -- Six members of the International Olympic Committee implicated in a bribery scandal surrounding the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Games should either resign or face expulsion, the IOC executive board recommended Sunday.

"These members have done great harm to the Olympic ideal. Now the greatest service to the Olympic movement is simply to accept their fate," IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch said at the conclusion of a two-day emergency meeting at IOC headquarters in Lausanne.

But Samaranch made it clear that the 2002 Winter Games would stay in Salt Lake City and the 2000 Summer Games would stay in Sydney, Australia.

Bid officials in Salt Lake City have admitted giving cash and gifts, including scholarships, jobs for family members and free medical care, to IOC members. The head of the Sydney bid committee has admitted giving money to two African IOC members, which he said was earmarked for sports programs in their countries, on the night before Sydney defeated Beijing 45-43 in secret balloting in 1993.

Salt Lake officials welcome changes

In an effort to prevent such abuses in the future, the executive board recommended wholesale changes in the way the IOC picks host cities, including reducing the number of members involved in the process and limiting contact between IOC members and representatives of host cities.

Garff supports the IOC action

The chairman of the Salt Lake Organizing Committee, Robert Garff, welcomed those changes.

"We're pleased the process is being remodeled, and it does validate what we've said all along -- that these problems didn't start here, but we hope they end here," he said.

Samaranch offered an apology for the actions of IOC members who accepted gifts from the Salt Lake City bid group, saying, "It should not have happened."

"I want to express my deepest apology to the athletes, the people of Salt Lake City in Utah and the millions of citizens worldwide who love and respect the games," he said.

Garff accepted Samaranch's apology and said the executive board took the "actions necessary to restore the integrity and values symbolized by the Olympic movement."

IOC announces sweeping reforms in the bidding process for the 2006 Winter Games

Samaranch to seek vote of confidence

The executive board's recommendations must be approved by the full IOC, which will hold a special meeting in March to deal with the scandal. Until then, the six members recommended for expulsion will be suspended, Samaranch said.

The IOC president said he had no plans to resign, as some critics within the Olympic movement have suggested. But Samaranch said he would ask for a vote of confidence in his leadership at the March IOC assembly.

The executive board Sunday gave its vote of confidence to Samaranch.

African, South American members tapped for removal

According to IOC director general Francois Carrard, the six IOC members recommended for expulsion for their actions surrounding the Salt Lake bid are: Agustin Arroyo of Ecuador; Jean-Claude Ganga of the Republic of Congo; Zein El Abdin Ahmed Abdel Gadir of Sudan; Lamine Keita of Mali; Charles Mukora of Kenya; and Sergio Santander of Chile.

Three members will remain under investigation: Louis Guirandou-N'Diaye of the Ivory Coast; Kim Un-yong of South Korea; and Vitaly Smirnov of Russia. IOC member Anton Geesink of the Netherlands was issued a warning.

Samaranch said David Sibandze of Swaziland already had resigned. Two others resigned last week.

Pound

Dick Pound, IOC vice president and head of the inquiry into the Salt Lake scandal, emphasized that the disciplinary recommendations dealt solely with Olympic rules.

"We are not accusing any member of corruption or bribery or suggesting that there was criminal conduct," Pound said. "These members are guilty of breaking the oath they took and bringing the reputation of the IOC into disrepute."

Hours before the Sunday announcement, one of the six members recommended for expulsion, Santander, told reporters in Lausanne that he did nothing wrong and has no plans to resign.

"Whatever happens today, I will stay in a calm and secure position in the belief that truth will prevail," he said.

Salt Lake bid chief Tom Welch has said he donated $10,000 to Santander's campaign for mayor of a Santiago suburb.

New site selection process recommended

The executive board announced it would broaden its investigation into improper bidding practices to other Olympic host cities and form an ethics commission.

It also recommended new procedures for the next Olympic site competition in June, when cities will compete for the 2006 Winter Games.

The host city would be selected not by the full IOC membership but by an election committee that would include eight IOC members, three athletes, one representative of a winter sports federation, one representative of a national Olympic committee, the IOC's longest-serving member and the chairman of the committee that evaluates the bid cities.

Samaranch would be a member of the site selection committee but would have no vote. No members of the IOC's powerful executive committee would serve on the selection committee.

Visits by IOC members to cities bidding on the Games would be banned, and representatives of the cities would be prohibited from visiting committee members.

Carrard said a permanent process for subsequent site selections would be decided upon after these new trial procedures are used for the 2006 Winter Games.