Costs of Hosting FINA World Championships Mounting for Hungary

Photo Courtesy: Facebook - Budapest 2017

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With all costs of this summer’s FINA World Championships starting to add up, Hungary will likely end up on the hook for some $454 million in U.S. dollars, or HUF 130 billion, when all is said and done.

That number comes from adding up the costs of organizing the championships (HUF 32.9 billion), fees and licenses (38.6 bil) and infrastructure (92 bil).

Hungarian Minister of National Development Miklós Seszták insisted that most of the infrastructure work would have been done anyway, according to the Budapest Beacon, but it’s the HUF 41.4 billion cost of the Danube Arena, host of the swimming and diving competition that has been the biggest financial burden for the country.

The country expects to make up to HUF 10 billion back off direct revenues, plus whatever those involved with the World Championships spend while in Hungary. Still, the bill figures to be much more than the HUF 25 billion that former Hungarian swimming federation president Tomas Gyarfas promised the World Championships would cost back in 2015.

Read more from the Budapest Beacon by clicking here.

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LJH

6 years ago

These numbers make hosting the event seem like a gigantic mistake for any country willing to shoulder the burden. Let’s hope this isn’t the “standard” for hosting the meet in the future. I struggle to believe the numbers are correct. Did they really spend $320+ million USD on the facility as this article seems to indicate (NOTE 92/130 * 454 million = 321,292,307)