France makes light of rising Games costs
PARIS: The final bill for the Paris Olympics is still unknown but, depending on the point of view, are likely to be expensive compared to original estimates or cheap, when set against other recent Games.
The total is currently approaching €9.0 billion (US$9.66 billion), but is likely to pass €10 billion, forcing additional contributions from the government for an Olympics planned under the mantra “the Games finance the Games”.
With 100 days to go before the flame is lit in the opening ceremony, “the risk zone is now”, a government source told AFP.
What is included in the cost of Olympics can lead to wildly different calculations of their costs.
The Tokyo Olympics, delayed a year and held in 2021 during the Covid crisis, cost €12 billion according to Japan’s national auditors, almost twice as much as the estimate in their original bid.
For Rio in 2016, beset by corruption, the local organisers estimated a total cost of €11.8 billion, more than half of that on infrastructure.
Estimates for London in 2012 range between €12 and €15 billion. For Beijing in 2008 calculations from outside experts run as high as €40 billion at current exchange rates. Athens in 2004, which added to the Greek government’s crippling debts, cost €13 billion.
For Paris, the responsibility for spending the money is divided between the Organising Committee for the Olympic Games (Cojo), which is running the competition, and the Olympic Delivery Company (Solideo) which built the facilities. Both have had issues compounded by higher-than-anticipated inflation.
Cojo is already on course to raise more money from private sources, €4.4 billion, than the original estimate of €3.2 billion. In fact the original budget foresaw perfect financial balance — a goal which has been abandoned.
Cojo is raising €1.24 billion from sponsors, €1.4 billion from ticket sales and it receives €1.2 billion in funding from the International Olympic Committee.
Among Cojo’s costs are renting the Stade de France, equipping the Olympic Village for the athletes, paying private security guards, for temporary stands and for the dancers at the opening ceremony.
At the end of 2022, Cojo hiked its budget 10 percent, blaming inflation. By then, it had received an additional €111 million in public funding from the French government and local authorities, in particular for the organisation of the Paralympics, which take place after the Olympics.
The French Court of Audit said Cojo had committed the traditional Olympic error of underestimating its initial budget.
In a sign that times are hard, Cojo recently asked the regional government to contribute to the cost of bus transport for accredited participants, a €10-million expense. The region refused.
The French government is keeping a close eye on the Cojo’s finances. The government has given a €3-billion guarantee to cover shortfalls.
“For the moment, there is no reason to believe that there will be a deficit,” Sports Minister Amelie Oudea-Castera said.
Solideo, with a total budget of €4.4 billion, has received almost €1.8 billion from national, regional and local governments. That includes €542 million towards the total €646-million cost of building the Olympic Village, which will become apartments after the Games.
Other legacy items include the newly-built Olympic aquatics centre, which will host diving, water polo and artistic swimming events, and a footbridge over the motorway that separates the pool from the Stade de France, where athletics and rugby sevens will take place.
Yet not all the costs are known, including the exact price tag of security, including the €1,900 Olympic bonuses for police officers and other promised public service bonuses.
By 2023, budget documents indicated that the public Olympic contribution had reached €2.44 billion (including €1.3 billion from national government and €260 million from the city of Paris).
The President of the Court of Audit, Pierre Moscovici, recently upped his estimate of the final public contribution to “three, four or five billion euros”, saying the final figure would only be known “after the Olympics”. Oudea-Castera disagreed. “There’s no reason why it should be €5 billion,” she said, adding there was no “budgetary drift or hidden costs”.
Oudea-Castera also argued that compared to the other Summer Olympics this millennium, even a final total bill close to €10 billion would be cheap.
“These budgets are probably the most scrutinised in the history of the Olympics” and “the most restrained [in terms of organisation] in 20 years”, she said.
The final score will not be known until long after the final competition ends.
The Court of Audit has been asked to produce a report by autumn 2025.