The bidding to hold the 2024 Summer Olympic Games is set to come down to three competitors after the new mayor of Rome, Virginia Raggi, refused to back the Italian capital’s bid to host sport’s largest event for the second time.
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The Italian capital’s new mayor, Virginia Raggi of the anti-establishment Five Star Movement, has spoken before of her concerns about the rising cost of putting on the Games. She also made a presentation outlining the case against a bid, citing debts incurred by previous hosts – including Rome itself in 1960.
The party’s keys issues are transparency and accountability, but as Rome’s deeply-rooted problems piled up over the summer, Raggi struggled to get her cabinet up and running and seemed unprepared to tackle the same issues afflicting the city for years. “We don’t want sports to become another pretext for more cement foundations in the city”.
The Italian government supports the bid, but needs the backing of the city council to press ahead.
In February 2012, Italy’s then Prime Minister Mario Monti called an end to a bid for the 2020 Games, citing “uncertain costs and unknown financial benefit” at the peak of the financial crisis.
One solution could be letting cities that have hosted the games once to do so again not long after, given they already have the infrastructure.
There is no confirmation that Rome has departed from the 2024 race and as such it is not appropriate for us to offer any comment except to wish our Italian colleagues well during this period of hard time, the Budapest Olympic committee said.
In a statement, the committee said it was “disappointed that a city like Rome is surrendering and that it is not being considered capable of competing”.
But Raggi added: “Boston, Hamburg and Madrid all had strong reasons to oppose hosting the (2024) Games”. Boston also dropped out past year amid a lack of public and political support and was replaced by Los Angeles.
The Rome withdrawal is another blow to an International Olympic Committee already embarrassed by the decision of four high profile European not to bid for the 2022 Winter Olympics.
Raggi blamed her opposition on the history of gross cost overruns that Olympic host cities have experienced over the past several Games.
Raggi highlighted the spiralling deficits of former host cities and, in a reference to the building work that would be required, said she opposed another “concrete Olympics”. 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 fantastic for the city.
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“It’s very upsetting”, Rome bid vice president Luca Pancalli said.
