The Prague Post Online: Sports: Olympic dream pushes on

December 5th, 2008

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Olympic dream pushes on

Cabinet grants legal guarantees to Prague

By František Bouc
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
January 16th, 2008 issue

The government will allow the Olympic dreams of the Prague City Hall and Czech Olympic Committee (ČOV) to continue.

Despite rising opposition to Prague’s bid to host the 2016 Summer Olympics, including political controversies within the ruling coalition, the Cabinet issued legal guarantees to the project Jan. 9. The guarantees declare the government’s readiness to admit into the country all people accredited by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and accept the general principles of the Olympic Charter.

Even with this apparent step forward, the government has not yet promised to contribute a single crown to the Olympic project, said Prime Minister Mirek Topolánek.

“At the moment, the Cabinet sees no reason whatsoever to consider any financial guarantees,” he added.

Lurking beneath the surface of Topolánek’s comments were indications that the Olympic bid is not supported by the ruling coalition. In fact, only the senior government Civic Democratic Party (ODS) agreed to push the project forward, although some of its members, including Topolánek, expressed objections.

The legal guarantees completed the questionnaire that Prague was due to submit to the IOC after officially registering last September as a candidate city. The IOC will shortlist five cities this summer and announce the winning bidder Oct. 2 in Copenhagen.

Prague’s chances at winning the bid seem slim. Critics point out that the city’s competition includes Chicago, Tokyo, Madrid and Rio de Janeiro, and, perhaps more importantly, that the 2012 Olympics will be held in London, making the next Games likely to be staged outside Europe.

Finance Minister Miroslav Kalousek appeared to follow this line of reasoning when he said the issue of financial guarantees was unlikely to make the Cabinet’s agenda, since Prague was not expected to clear the IOC’s shortlist.

“Anyway, I can’t see the source for funding the Olympics in the state budget,” he added.

According to a preliminary study issued by PricewaterhouseCoopers in 2005, the Prague Olympics would cost about 132 billion Kč ($7.5 billion). That estimate was reduced last fall to 88 billion Kč, but would still require the state to contribute 25 billion Kč from its budget.

Prague Mayor Pavel Bém, the loudest lobbyist for the Olympics, points out that once total accounts are made of the Prague Games, the country would see a surplus.

“Every Summer Olympics since Barcelona in 1992 has been profitable,” he said. “The games would earn Prague and the whole country dozens of millions of crowns.”

ČSOB bank analyst Tomáš Sedláček did not follow Bém’s optimism.

“It’s hard to predict real costs at the moment since the estimates are so much different,” Sedláček said.

So far, City Hall and the Praha olympijská company, which developed the bid jointly, have spent about 20 million Kč on the project. Should Prague pass the IOC’s first cut, the developers would then need financial guarantees from the Cabinet, said Tomáš Petera, Praha olympijská’s director. Making the IOC’s shortlist would significantly boost Prague’s Olympic chances in the future.

“If we make it all the way through to Copenhagen and then fail to win the assignment to host the 2016 games, Prague would stand good chances to host the 2020 Olympics,” he said.

František Bouc can be reached at fbouc@praguepost.com

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