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a thought, but I cannot be worried about this every day,” he said, adding
that he lived rent-free in an apartment owned by his father. “Taking part
in the Olympics for my country makes me very proud.”
To say that sport has been an unwitting victim of the Greek financial
disaster is to understate the role the 2004 Olympics played in the
current mess. It is partly the weight of the debt accrued eight to ten
years ago that pulled Greece under the financial waves.
After three years dithering, the Greek government was given a stern
warning by the Olympics’ senior commissioners: get your act together
or we take it elsewhere. Athens, terrified of what losing the games
would do to their global reputation, acted.
Buildings were erected by workers doing double, triple shifts. No
expense was spared. The final deadline was met, and Greece glowed
in the beam of world attention. The final bill came to over $12 billion,
but so what? The games, founded here over two millennia ago, were
home.
The trouble was that Athens had no plan for paying the money back,
and no hope of doing so. What was always going to be difficult became
impossible with the GFC of 2008.
The malaise in Greek sport can be seen in the very real evidence
scattered through Athens. The sporting facilities, erected at such
immense cost and responsible for so much of the country’s current
climate, stand decayed and disused.
“I watched Athens go completely broke when we built the venues,”
said Taki Theodoracopulos, a Greek expert on the city. “Now they’re
derelict. These buildings are horrible and the government is to blame.
It’s disappointing and it’s all subsidised crap. All because of the
bureaucracy.”
Now, most of the 2004 venues are derelict, homes for stray dogs and
the homeless. Thieves have gutted what remained, even seats from the
Olympic stadium being hauled away. Leasing ventures, ear-marked to
help subsidise the massive outlay for the Games, almost completely
failed.
“The dream of the Olympics that improved our image in the world during
those 16 days has been lost, and it makes me sad,” Kapralos said.
“We had a foundation of good people in 2004, a dynamic which now is
lost just like the venues that have become soulless buildings.”
While Athens bares the visual scars of the disaster, Greek athletes
continue to prepare, despite the constraints. Private sponsorship is
now the only sure way the players will be supported as they train. But
this money comes at a trickle.
Betting company OPAP gives the Olympic hopefuls $6.5 million, and
the national airline, ironically called Olympic Air, gives away free flights.
It is all too little, and Greece has all but conceded that there will be no
medals this year.
Greece will lead the world out into the arena during this year’s Olympics.
They do this to remind the world of where this grand tradition began.
This year, they should also remind us what the consequences of
financial mismanagement in sport can be.
The London Olympics will suffer a budget
blowout according to a parliamentary
committee charged with keeping an eye on the
bottom line.
While the shortfall will be nothing like the
tragedy that unfolded in Greece eight years
ago, the figures once again confirm the perils
of hosting a major international competition.
The number quoted by the committee is
roughly £11 billion, which is almost two billion
more than the £9.3 billion budget assigned to
the competition initially.
Chair of the committee, Margaret Hodge, claims
the biggest unanticipated cost will be security,
and questions the government’s handling of
the tender and subsequent negotiations.
“LOCOG (The London organising committee)
now needs more than twice the number of
security guards it originally estimated and the
costs have roughly doubled. It is staggering
that the original estimates were so wrong,” she
said.
Head of LOCOG, Paul Deighton, shot back by
saying that the Olympics are on track to come
in on budget, but it will be close.
“We have £93m contingency and our
expectation of risks is £88m, so we are very,
very finely balanced,” he said, explaining the
built in funds that protect the budget against
unforeseen costs.
The government denies the findings of the
committee. A spokesman for the Department
of Culture, Media and Sport said that future
earnings will offset current shortfalls.
“The cost of purchasing the Olympic Park land
will ultimately come back to the public purse
through the resale of the land after the Games
and was therefore not included,” he said.
The London 2012 Olympics will open on July
27th.
AND ON TO LONDON