Joining Boston, Hamburg, Paris and potentially Budapest and Baku, now Rome is on the list of cities vocalizing earnest interest in hosting the 2024 Summer Olympic Games. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has a September 15th deadline by which all applications must be formally put forth, which puts the onus on each interested city to garner its public’s and governing bodies’ support in the meantime. The IOC ultimately selects the host city in the year 2017.
Rome has taken one step further in the bidding process as a result of its city council’s 38-6 vote in favor of the city’s hosting the Games. Putting the voting result in an emotional context, Rome Mayor Ignazio Marino said, “This is a vote that looks to the future and an opportunity to think about the city for the next generation. The Rome 2024 Olympics will leave a renewed, modern and sustainable identity for our city.”
According to ESPN Olympics, the city has put forth an estimated budget of approximately $6.7 billion, of which $2 billion would be covered by the IOC. This figure represents just about half of what London’s expenditure was in 2012. This monstrous figure may be Rome’s biggest hurdle in its public support, as just three years ago when Rome had planned on bidding for the 2020 Games, it had to withdraw due to financial reasons.
Currently, the 2024 bid is in itself surrounded by scandal, as the so-called “Mafia Capital” investigation by Roman authorities is still underway, where “Phone conversations intercepted by police and published in the media have described how local criminal bosses managed to cement ties with city politicians over lucrative public contracts”, leading to numerous arrests. (ESPN)
An organization aimed at defeating any chance for a formalized bid calls themselves the “5-Star Movement” and its leader, Marcello De Vito, says adamantly, “With Mafia Capital in full swing and in a city with Mafia infiltration, spiraling budgets and services inadequate for its citizens, putting forward the Rome bid seems absurd to us.”
Rome is no stranger to hosting giant sporting events, as it was indeed the site of the 1960 Olympic Games. Many of the venues are reportedly still viable for competition today, including the athletics and soccer stadium, as well as the swimming and diving and tennis structures.
In 2014 there was a flurry of articles about Rome’s impending bankruptcy . I did a search to see if my memory wax correct – as in ‘ What are these peope thinking . Are they mad.’
Sure enough , amid Rome’s debts from Caesar , The Punic Wars etc there it was . Rome is again in heavy debt but this time with no empire & nothing to show for it .
Now the Olympics? Apparently the Mayor is an American trained brain surgeon . I think he must have been doing some serious drug experiments or mafioso-ed.