LAUSANNE, Switzerland Olympic Chief Juan Antonio Samaranch said on Tuesday he did not support Kim Un-Yong's plan to allow IOC members to visit cities bidding for the games if the South Korean is elected IOC president in July.

The decision to ban visits to potential host cities was one of the key reforms pushed through by International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Samaranch following the Salt Lake City corruption scandal in 1998 and 1999.

Kim, as part of his election platform, has pledged to restore IOC members' rights to visit cities bidding for the games.

"I read in the document he sent to the members of the Olympic Committee that is what he plans and that is his personal ideal," said Samaranch, speaking at a news conference to confirm the five candidates running to replace him.

"I can say clearly it is not my attitude, my idea. The IOC was the only organization in the sports community that elected a city to host an event that sent its members to visit the cities concerned. I believed these visits were useless."

He added: "There's always something good to come out of a crisis and we took the opportunity to convince the members of the IOC that it would be far better to have an evaluation commission (visiting the cities) and to send the report to the members so that they could vote for the best candidate.

"But obviously I respect the point of view of all members of the IOC."

Some 10 members either resigned or were thrown out of the IOC for breaking rules on accepting gifts from Salt Lake when the U.S. city was bidding successfully for the 2002 Winter Games, Reuters reported.

IOC members have not been allowed to visit the candidates for the 2008 Summer Games -- Beijing, Osaka (Japan), Istanbul, Paris and Toronto -- before they choose the venue in a vote on July 13 in Moscow, three days before the presidency vote.

Samaranch said the deadline for the presidency race had passed and there had been no new names added to the five members who had already announced they were running.

Kim is one of three heavyweight candidates in the race with Belgian surgeon Jacques Rogge, the chief coordinator of last year's successful Sydney Olympics, and Canadian lawyer Dick Pound, the IOC's marketing chief.

Former U.S. rower Anita Defrantz and Hungary's ex-fencer Pal Schmitt have also put their names forward for the vote but are not expected to figure highly.

"The deadline was three months prior to session or April 10 but we waited until today to see if there were any problems with mail," explained Samaranch. "There were none.

"So as president of the IOC I can officially proclaim the candidates who have been accepted."