VIENNA — The president of Austria’s Olympic Committee said he will step down later this month because the organization has been stung by a series of doping and financial scandals and needs restructuring.

Leo Wallner issued a brief statement Friday saying his resignation will take effect Sept. 23.
“I am aware that personal changes are needed for restructuring,” Wallner said. “The chosen point in time guarantees a proper handing over ... which is important to the AOC and the sports in Austria.”
Sports Minister Norbert Darabos had suggested earlier this week that it might be time for a “generation change” at the head of the Vienna-based committee.
The 73-year-old Wallner is Austria’s longest-serving national Olympic committee president. His announcement comes three weeks before an extraordinary general meeting to deal with the fallout of doping and financial scandals.
Austrian prosecutors have been investigating questionable cash transactions tied to the committee’s failed bid to host the 2014 Winter Olympics in Salzburg.
Wallner became the committee’s 10th president in 1990, taking over from Kurt Heller, and was re-elected for another four-year term last February.
Wallner, who had been general director of Casinos Austria for 40 years before resigning in 2007, has also been a member of the International Olympic Committee since 1998.
The IOC said it had no comment.
The national committee had recently been hit by a financial scandal over murky money flows surrounding the failed bid to host the 2014 Games and which prompted AOC general secretary Heinz Jungwirth to step down earlier this year.
Wallner allegedly neglected to properly supervise the situation, in which a lobbyist was paid more than $1.4 million.
The AOC’s executive board decided Monday to file official complaints against Jungwirth, who was held responsible for financial irregularities during his roughly 25-year tenure.
The Salzburg public prosecutor’s office has already been investigating Jungwirth and four others since mid-February.
Salzburg lost the bid to host the 2014 Olympics to Sochi, Russia, two years ago.