Rome Mayor Pulls Support of 2024 Olympic Bid; UPDATED with Bid Committee Statement

Photo Courtesy: Wikipedia

Rome mayor Virginia Raggi announced that she had put a motion before the city’s assembly to end its bid to host the 2024 Olympic Games.

The IOC requires that any bid for the Games have the support of the host city’s government, so if Raggi’s motion is accepted, one of the four current bid cities for 2024 would be out of the running.

Raggi’s decision comes four years after former Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti cancelled the city’s bid for the 2020 Games, citing financial problems. Those Olympics were eventually awarded to Tokyo.

Raggi cited similar financial concerns at a press conference Wednesday morning explaining her decision. She explained that it would be irresponsible to commit so much money towards hosting the Games given Rome’s existing infrastructure issues.

“In light of the data we have, these Olympics are not sustainable. They will bring only debt,” Raggi said, according to the Associated Press.

Budapest, Los Angeles and Paris are currently the other cities seeking the bid, while both Boston and Hamburg, Germany, have already withdrawn from the selection process.

Four cities— Stockholm; Oslo; Lviv, Ukraine; and Krakow, Poland—all dropped out of the bidding for the 2022 Winter Games, leaving just two cities on the final ballot. Those Games went to Beijing, which will host just 14 years after the 2008 Summer Games.

All of the cities that have dropped Olympic bids have cited the same financial concerns that Raggi mentioned in her press conference. Many were scared off by the billions Russia spent to host the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.

The final host city for 2024 will be determined in September 2017 in Lima, Peru.

Raggi had been scheduled to meet with Italian Olympic Committee President Giovanni Malago to discuss the situation prior to her press conference, but Malago left city hall before the two ever spoke. He is expected to give a press conference later Tuesday.

Rome’s bid had been expected to use many of the same venues originally built for the 1960 Olympics, including the Stadio Olympico and the Foro Italico for swimming—a venue also used for FINA World Championships in 1994 and 2009.

UPDATED 2:30 p.m. ET: The Rome 2024 Bid Committee put out an official statement in response to Raggi’s announcement.

Unsurprisingly, the committee expressed disappointment with the decision and explained why it felt the Olympics would be a boon for the city and country. Read the full statement below.

We take note of the decision made by the victors of the recent elections in Rome, however; we are profoundly surprised and disappointed:

Disappointed for Rome and its citizens, especially for its youth;

Disappointed for the nearly 200,000 people that would have found a job through the hosting of the Olympics;

Disappointed for the citizens of Rome who hoped their quality of life would improve with the modernization and new viability of the city, which would have been made more green and accessible without spending a dime of the city’s budget;

Disappointed for the 7 billion dollars that would have boosted Rome’s economy, helped its suburbs and resurrected many sports facilities that are currently abandoned and unused. We are especially disappointed for the missed opportunity to receive resources that would have been allocated solely to the development of Rome and its economy;

Disappointed that a new political force is unwilling to accept the challenge of modernization and take on the responsibility of change, legality and transparency, and that it did not want to take advantage of the opportunity to launch a significant project of urban redevelopment, as was the result of the 1960 Games in Rome;

Disappointed that the rhetoric around wastefulness has won out over the new, important IOC regulations, created specifically to address waste and projects that are not beneficial for citizens and to involve other cities in the hosting of the Games;

Disappointed for Cagliari and Sardinia, but also for Milan, Turin, Verona, Udine, Genoa, Bologna, Florence, Naples, Bari and Palermo – cities that have all believed in the Italian Olympic dream with great enthusiasm and that now are paying for the decision of a single city’s administration that does not take into consideration the interests of its city nor its country.

Disappointed that this same political force has transformed an extraordinary opportunity for youth and the city into an ideologically-, politically- and demagogically-based decision, and that rather than taking action, they have opted to do nothing;

Disappointed for the thousands of citizens that have chosen change, but are now regretting it;

Disappointed for the younger generation of the Promoting Committee that, within CONI, have worked hard with enthusiasm and determination on this Olympic project, which today has been swallowed up by fear;

Disappointed for the great work that has been carried out to boost our image abroad over the past 17 months, bolstered by a dossier that everyone considered at the utmost standards, and that has now been scrapped, resulting in a severe blow to Italy’s credibility worldwide;

Disappointed that this work has not even been developed and that prejudice and superficiality have won;

Disappointed that Rome is missing out on the extraordinary opportunity to become the global capital of sport through the Olympic Games, as well as the capital of the Church with the upcoming 2025 Jubilee;

Disappointed even more so for the projects and infrastructure that will have to be developed anyway, now weighing entirely on the city’s budget, for the Jubilee;

Disappointed that a city like Rome is surrendering and that it is not being considered capable of competing not even 8 years from now, when the 2024 Olympics would have taken place, presenting the international community with a poor reputation of the city;

But what saddens us most is having to tell our children that the new government of Rome doesn’t have the courage to take on the responsibility of their future. It would have been so much better to have been able to tell them that a new, enlightened government is willing to make difficult decisions and have the courage to clear a path, without getting trapped by contingency and by the deafening sound of the present, looking beyond the horizon and pointing the way for a new generation. That is how a dream is born, at least for those who know how to take on challenges.

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