Kuwaiti Sheik's Influence in Olympic World Grows Vincent Yu/Associated Press Sheik Ahmad al-Fahad al-Sabah has built a coalition that can sway votes and appoint executives, according to people involved with the I.O.C. As hundreds of sports industry elites gather this week in Buenos Aires, one member of the International Olympic Committee is likely to play a major role in all of the big decisions, from which city will host the 2020 Games to which sport will be added to the roster. He is Sheik Ahmad al-Fahad al-Sabah, a wealthy, jet-setting member of the Kuwaiti royal family who has quietly become one of the most powerful and controversial people in global sports, yet remains largely overlooked by many outside tightly knit Olympic political circles. Al-Sabah is the new head of the Association of National Olympic Committees, a consortium of 205 national Olympic committees spanning five continents. The job comes with considerable influence in the Olympic world, along with a generous fund to disperse to needy athletes and impoverished countries. The fund, Olympic Solidarity, will give away $438 million in the 2013-16 cycle, an increase of about 40 percent from the $311 million budget from 2009 to 2012. Since becoming an I.O.C. member in 1992, al-Sabah, 50, has built a coalition that can sway votes and appoint executives, according to interviews with over a dozen I.O.C. members, officials and consultants. He played a key role in a recent vote to award the 2018 Youth Olympic Games to Buenos Aires; at least one consultant involved created a spreadsheet tallying which members were thought to be in al-Sabah's voting bloc, according to documents reviewed by The New York Times. Representatives for al-Sabah did not respond to multiple requests for comment. He has skirted around the edges of I.O.C. rules recently. He was quoted in the German press regarding Thomas Bach, a candidate for the I.O.C. presidency, prompting Olympic officials to write a letter to al-Sabah reminding him of the rules prohibiting endorsements. The al-Sabah family has extensive interests in the oil industry, and his relatives hold prominent positions in the government and military. His father, Fahad al-Ahmed al-Jaber al-Sabah, was deeply involved in a number of international sports organizations, including the I.O.C., until he was killed defending the palace when Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990. At 29 years old, al-Sabah joined the I.O.C. after his father's death and was among the youngest members ever in the elite group. Beyond his involvement in sports, al-Sabah has served as head of Kuwait's national security commission and as OPEC chairman. He attended Kuwait's military academy. Charismatic and connected, the sheik may be seen in a leather jacket and sunglasses, cigarette in hand, with dark, curly hair tumbling down his shoulders. He stands in stark contrast to most Olympic officials, who rarely stray from a uniform of formal business attire. His schedule, like many I.O.C. members," is filled with ceremonies, dinners and traversing the globe, sometimes in his private jet. Al-Sabah has drawn the attention of United States authorities. The Kuwaiti ambassador to the State Department said he is "widely perceived as being corrupt," according to a classified WikiLeaks cable. The ambassador also called him "clever and ambitious," and said that he is "widely seen as being the only member of the ruling family having both the will and capacity to rule." The I.O.C. has long been criticized for its secrecy, even a decade after the Salt Lake City bribery scandal. In the wake of that embarrassment, the I.O.C. drafted reforms intended to curb cronyism and bribery. Nevertheless, critics say the group's official business is built on horse-trading, handshakes and secret votes. "The opaque politics of Olympic politics is not comforting," Jens Sejer Andersen, international director of Play the Game, a sports ethics research group in Denmark, said. Because you will never know when a decision is taken on an objective basis for the good of sport, or is a result of maneuvering from strong pressure groups in business or world politics. Critics said that al-Sabah had been pushing for years to become the next head of the A.N.O.C., and his aggressive campaigning for the job sparked the resignation of Mario Vázquez Raña of Mexico, who had previously held that post. In his resignation letter, Raña wrote that "it is said, quite forcefully, that the sheik, to ensure support for their ambitious plans and to have the necessary votes, gave 50,000 "compelling reasons" to some leaders." Through a spokeswoman, Raña did not respond to requests for comment.