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Sabi Hussain
tribune news service
New Delhi, May 2
The visit of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Thomas Bach to India was linked to a possible bid by India to host the 2024 Olympic Games.
Four of the six candidate cities for the 2022 Winter Olympics have dropped out of the race, and it was speculated that the IOC wanted India to bid or at least show an interest in holding in the 2024 Olympics. After meeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Bach had this to say: “India will not bid for 2024 Olympic Games as Prime Minister Narendra Modi did not propose it.”
The hoopla surrounding the possible bid by India evoked an amused reaction from Bach, who was of the view that India should first focus on creating a sports culture. “We were a bit surprised about this (India bidding for 2024 Olympics) speculation because we thought it may be too quick for India to host a successful Olympic Games,” said Bach.
This seems like sensible advice, especially as the 2010 Commonwealth Games experience is still a painful memory. The huge expenditure involved — a conservative estimate put the cost of hosting at Rs 50,000 crore — made India rethink their Olympic dream. Hosting the Olympics props up civic pride and boosts the country’s image, but the monuments built for the spectacle, the stadiums, soon turn into ghostly reminders of once glorious days. This has happened with the stadiums built for CWG 2010.
White elephants
“In fact, the historical record of long-term benefit from Olympic-related sports facilities is one indelibly burdened by maintenance and operation costs that rise well above user fee revenue. Olympic sports facilities are a losing proposition to a city; they become white elephants,” said Robert K Barney, author of Selling the Five Rings: The International Olympic Committee and the Rise of Olympic Commercialism.
The evidence from the past Olympic Games hardly suggests that there’s a resounding economic gain for the host city. Montreal’s 1976 Olympics left the city with $2.7 billion of debt that was finally paid off in 2005. The Barcelona Organising Committee in 1992 broke even, but the public debt rose to $6.1 billion. When Athens won the right to host the 2004 Games in 1997, its budget was $1.6 billion. The final public cost was around $16 billion. Meanwhile, most of the Athens’ Olympics facilities are under-utilised. Maintenance costs on the facilities came in around $124 million and, reportedly, there is little use of the stadiums, which have turned into a heap of rubbish. Some critics also blamed the Olympic for Greece’s economic downturn with the country still finding it hard to pay off its huge debts, running into billions. Beijing, which hosted the spectacular Olympic Games in 2008, didn’t make any money. According to a report, it could take 30 years to pay off the $471 million bills for the Bird’s Nest, the main stadium, while the Water Cube (venue of swimming events) lost about $1 million last year. The venues for kayaking, beach volleyball, BMX, and baseball sit untouched since 2008.
The London Olympic Development Committee announced that the Olympic Stadium will be closed until at least 2016. The stadium was originally planned to re-open in 2013, but the stadium will now simply serve as a $735 million reminder that hosting the Olympics sometimes is not a profitable option.
India’s CWG legacy
Had India bid for and won the right to host the 2024 Olympics, it would have resulted in investing billions into new infrastructure for a two-and-a-half week event. While the CWG had just 17 events, the Olympics have at least 25, and up to 28 events.
It is no secret that the whole of India never really embraced the Delhi CWG. A little over four years after the CWG, the expensive stadia used for the CWG that were rebuilt at a cost of over Rs 2,100 crore either lie deserted or under-utilised, gobbling up massive amounts just for their upkeep. Only a few tournaments have been hosted at the five stadia under the Sports Authority of India (SAI) such as the Indian Super League (ISL) or the International Premier Tennis League (IPTL). The CWG showpiece, the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, Karni Singh Shooting Range with a centrally air-conditioned indoor shooting range spread over 72 acres, Syama Prasad Mookerjee swimming complex, Major Dhyan Chand National Stadium and Indira Gandhi Indoor Stadium have turned out to be the proverbial white elephants.
There was hope that commoners would rally around the motto of the CWG, Come Out and Play, but the stadiums are not really inviting to budding sportspersons. The shooting range lies on the outskirts of the capital, which is the biggest disadvantage for the potential shooters to use the facility. The tennis stadium is very expensive for an average player. “The yearly membership for the stadium, which includes the coaching facility, is from Rs 18,000 to Rs 48,000. And if somebody wants to utilise the courts on a daily basis, the charges come out to be Rs 150 per hour, minus the coach’s fee, which is Rs 500 per hour,” said an official at the RK Khanna tennis complex.
At the Siri Fort Sports Complex, both the squash and badminton courts are barely used because the high costs charged by the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) dissuade most organisers.
Though the Sports Ministry has thrown open its five major stadiums to the public for schemes like ‘Come and Play’, the Delhiites hardly seem interested. The SAI needs Rs 70 crore per year to maintain the stadia, but gets Rs 39 crore from the government as part of the annual budget.
Raising money has become a nightmare for the SAI. Public-Private-Partnership (PPP) was one model that the SAI had introduced after the CWG, but even that didn’t work for the sports body. With the mounting maintenance bills, the sports body had thought of using the stadiums commercially as it’s done in the West, but that proposal too has been gathering dust for months.
Waste of time and money?
Eminent sports lawyer Rahul Mehra said that if the CWG experience is taken as evidence, an Indian Olympic bid will only be a waste of time, energy and money and will only result in another corruption scandal. “Look at China, they actually concentrated and built their structure at the grassroots level. They created a complete system for 25 years and when they were able to compete with the world, when they could actually top the medal’s tally and achieved the pinnacle of the Olympic sport, is when they hosted the Games. It’s a matter of pride to win the medals in front of your own people,” he said.
If people had hoped that hosting the Games or building the infrastructure would help the country grow as a sports powerhouse, there is no evidence visible yet.