IOC Can Survive Olympics Postponement, But Cancellation Will Be A Disaster

Members of the IOC have conceded that they may have to host the rescheduled 2020 Games in front of empty stands due to safety concerns. (Picture courtesy: Olympics.org)

Experts have suggested that while the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has vast reserves and means to cope with a postponement of the Olympics, a cancellation will lead to a catastrophe.

The future of the IOC looks stable, bolstered as it has rich sponsors and steadily rising marketing contracts and television rights. Among these sponsors is the French IT group Atos, which recently extended its partnership with IOC till 2024.

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Jean-Loup Chappelet, a specialist in the Olympic movement and professor emeritus at the Lausanne-based Swiss Graduate School of Public Administration has dismissed any notions that the IOC itself may face ruin because of a postponed Olympics.

Instead, the aid they will need to provide to the Tokyo Olympics Organising Committee as well as various international federations denied competitions — and therefore income — will weigh them down.

The IOC declared an $800 million fund in May of which $650 million were intended to cover the cost of the Games being postponed. The remaining $150 million was to help the Olympic movement, including federations. International federations were given aid upto $60 million by July 15 to overcome their financial distress.

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Despite the new window given to the Olympics (July - August 2021) there remains uncertainty whether the event will actually be held at all. Most decisions will have to be taken and considered with the evolving nature of the current pandemic. IOC chief Thomas Bach has publicly acknowledged the possibility of holding the Games behind closed doors very recently.

Nonetheless, a straight cancellation has not been considered yet. "A cancellation of the Tokyo Games would be serious, both financially and from a sporting perspective for most international federations," Chappelet told AFP. "But I don't believe that will happen because the IOC and most importantly the Japanese government will do everything so that they take place, even if they are 'simplified'.”

"They will then be able to say 'We did it', a little like after the two World Wars: Antwerp in 1920 and London in 1948 symbolised a certain return to normality, even if they were both Games of austerity”.

Patrick Clastres, director of Lausanne University's Global Sport and Olympic Studies Center has gone further than Chappelet saying that "should the Games not take place, it would have an impact on the Olympic system".

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"It would put international federations in danger and reveal their financial fragility," with many smaller federations dependent on IOC payouts every four years." said Clastres. "Certain federations are financed by oligarchs, like the international fencing federation with Alisher Usmanov.”

"Others rely on Russian money. And for yet more others, the situation is really tough. In the medium term, the model will be to lift the Olympic shutdown”.

The caution and overriding sense of pessimism that pervades through the Tokyo Olympics (the rescheduled event is now exactly 365 days away) has also seeped into planning for the Prasi Games in 2024.

Writing in his column for franceinfo, IOC member and former sports Minister in France, Guy Drut has asked the Olympics to reinvent themselves to avoid becoming obsolete.

"In the future, we need to reinvent the Olympic Games, to adapt. At the IOC, it is up to us to put this forward to lower the overall cost of the event," Drut said. "This will also be true for Paris 2024 where the most urgent thing is a budget update. At the Tokyo Olympics, 200 measures have been talked about to reduce costs. You have to do exactly the same for Paris 2024.”

Paris will host their first Olympics since 1924 and have a budget of around $7.71 billion of which the organising committee will account for $4.4 billion. A further $1.2 billion is expected to be secured through sponsors.

But the Games have already seen a rise in budget in the past few months, with public construction affected in the country. Notable among the projects that have seen a huge rise in budget is the Aquatic centre. Set to be constructed opposite the Stade de France — the main stadium for the Paris Games — the cost of the swimming venue has risen sharply from $130 million to over $202 million by the end of April.