Rome’s bid to host the 2024 summer Olympics was dealt a potentially fatal blow Wednesday after the city’s mayor, Virginia Raggi, said she would not give her formal backing.
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The mayor of Rome, Virginia Raggi, made good on her campaign pledge Wednesday to oppose risking billions on hosting the games in a city where they can’t even pick up the trash properly.
“We have asked for an urgent meeting between city councillors and the Italian Olympic committee…before the council meeting that will ratify the “no” to Rome’s candidacy”, said Codacons President Carlo Rienzi.
Raggi said it would be financially “irresponsible” to pursue the bid given the city is barely able to get its rubbish picked up.”In light of the data we have, these Olympics are not sustainable”.
Rome has cancelled its bid to host the 2024 Olympics, joining a growing list of cities scared off by the decades of debt the Games can leave as a legacy. The IOC is also coming off the most controversial Olympic Games in at least 40 years.
The International Olympic Committee will elect the host at a vote in Lima, Peru in September 2017, with Paris considered the favourite after unsuccessfully bidding for the 1992, 2008 and 2012 Games.
The mayor, who took office in June, is seen by most pundits as simply waiting for the end of the Paralympics in Rio to announce that City Hall will not be supporting the bid, which would scupper its chances of success.
The bid is based on three clusters: the existing Stadio Olimpico and surrounding Foro Italico complex for athletics and swimming; the Fiera convention center near the airport for indoor sports; and an athletes village and multi-sports arena at the Tor Vergata University on the city’s outskirts. “We just don’t support it”, she told reporters. Italy last hosted the Olympic Winter Games in Turin in 2006 and the Summer Games in Rome in 1960. “We don’t want sport to be an excuse for more rivers of cement in the city”. Rome had also bid to host the 2020 Games, but then-prime minister Mario Monti withdrew due to concerns over Italy’s finances.
“We don’t have to organize the Olympics and Agenda 2020 has completely changed everything”.
According to Amer, the committee received reports from its five members who accompanied the Egyptian mission to the Olympic Games in Brazil.
“I would say that Rome, with a current debt of 13 billion euros, today can’t afford to add to that debt, to build “cathedrals in the desert” (a waste of money)”.
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LA 84 Foundation CEO Renata Simril showed ABC7 an official torch from the ’84 Olympics, and said to have the games return in 2024 would be awesome for the city. Toronto officials past year also decided against a 2024 bid.
