Japanese Olympic Committee and Tokyo 2020 board member Tsunekazu Takeda stated that the payments were for consulting services, but refused to discuss the matter further because it was confidential.
The emblem's designer, Kenjiro Sano, defended the design, stating that he had never seen the Liège logo, while TOCOG released an early sketch of the design that emphasized a stylized "T" and did not resemble the Liège logo [REF].