The International Olympic Committee (IOC) will have to bear a loss of “several hundred million dollars,” owing to the delay in the Summer Olympics Games in light of the coronavirus pandemic, IOC president Thomas Bach had said in a recent interview with a German newspaper Die Welt.

Japan had estimated the overall cost to be somewhere between $2 billion-$6 billion. All additional costs, except what the IOC will have to bear, will have to be managed by Japan, as per the agreement signed in 2013 when Tokyo bagged the chance to host the Olympics.

Before postponing the Olympics, organisers from the Japanese had pegged the official cost of the games at $12.6 billion. A government audit report in 2019 had estimated different figures.

According to the audit, the cost was at least double than the estimates. Except for $5.6 billion, the rest of the cost is taxpayers’ money.

The CEO of the Tokyo organising committee Toshiro Muto had said that there were still some doubts about going ahead with the games next year due to the coronavirus pandemic as per the report.

Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe last month had announced that Japan will hold the Summer Olympics Games latest by the summer of 2021 owing to the widespread coronavirus outbreak.

The announcement had been made following a call with International Olympic Committee (IOC) head Thomas Bach as per a Reuters report.

Tokyo had completed all preparations for the summer games before the virus had started taking hold globally. It had consistently denied delaying the games before the cases saw a massive spike. Post which, the announcement of the delay was made.

As of Tuesday, over 1.9 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 have been reported across the globe.

Related Topics
comment COMMENT NOW