The City of Hamburg, Germany, is one of the candidate cities for the 2024 Olympic Games – the others are Rome (Italy), Paris (France), Budapest (Hungary) and Los Angeles (USA). The host for the 2024 Summer Olympic Games will be announced in September 2017 – but today, Hamburg presented their financial concept with the potential expenses for the Games. According to the plan, the estimated cost would be around 11,2 billion euros (or $12.6 billion USD) for the world’s biggest sporting event.
German taxpayers would contribute about 7,4 billion euros, the City of Hamburg should pay 1,2 billions. Approximately EUR 2,6 billion would be covered by revenue.
Hamburg’s Mayor Olaf Scholz and Christoph Krupp (Head of the Senate Chancellery) presented on Thursday morning the budget. “This is the best calculated application for Olympic Games, not only in Germany, I would say: ever.” Scholz added that “the financial strength of the City of Hamburg will not be overwhelmed. We kept an eye on the British example. The Olympic Games and Paralympic Games in 2024 will cost less than the London Olympics.” The British government had expenses of about 9 billion euros, Hamburg calculates at the moment with 8,6 billion – with the revenue already deducted.
A large part of the funds will be the cost of building the Olympic sites such as stadiums and sports facilities – estimated 2 billion and the Olympic Village with around 1.7 billion euros.
Nevertheless, the application needs the final “YES” to the 2024 Olympic Games from the citizens of Hamburg in order to move forward: In a referendum on November 29, there must be a simple majority for the 2024 Games (more YES than NO votes) and at least 20% of the electorate (about 260,000 citizens) must vote “YES “. In Hamburg, there are 1.3 million registered voters. In case of rejection by the voters, the German Olympic Sports Confederation (DOSB) must withdraw the already submitted application.