The true cost of the Olympics

11 December 2010

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London is being forced to lay on five-star luxury for the scores of grandees who run the Games. We reveal the documents the Olympic organisers did not want you to read

There was something rather un-British about all that grovelling to Fifa last week. That, at least, appears to be the new national consensus after even the combined charms of Prince William, David Cameron and David Beckham failed to land England the World Cup. We are not, we now realise, the kind of people who prostrate themselves to fat foreign sports bureaucrats. The mother of parliaments will never yield its cherished prerogatives to the rococo whims of some grubby Swiss tax-dodgers. Oh, wait a minute...

Entirely without the help of Mr Julian Assange, The Spectator today publishes an international sporting equivalent of the WikiLeaks cables. Our document cache is just as long, just as embarrassing to Britain, and just as closely held as the collected thoughts of the American diplomatic corps: it is the complete, contractually binding and previously confidential set of demands made by the 115-member International Olympic Committee (IOC) on poor old London for the 2012 Olympic Games.

Like the WikiLeak, the Olympics leak is by turns creepy and amusing. And it is just as revealing in its detail. We already knew, for instance, about the politburo nature of the IOC. What we did not know is that London is, according to these contracts, required to provide the IOC and the ‘Olympic Family’ (including the Committee members, staff and officials) with 40,000 hotel-room bookings for the entire duration of the Games. This includes 1,800 four- and five-star hotel rooms for the IOC elite. Six Park Lane hotels have been booked out for the duration of the Games, including the Dorchester, the Grosvenor and the Hilton.

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Ben WELLS

December 10th, 2010 11:19pm Report this comment

Please "get real" - as I hope the good Mayor Johnson will.

The Olympic Games are coming to London and will not be taken away. As with any other contract, the guiding principle should be "So sue us!".

If the IOC would really win substantial damages in an English court if flags were flown in the "wrong" order, then fly the flags in the "right" order; otherwise, stuff it!

Similarly, if the IOC would win damages greater than the cost of all the London bus advert spaces if a single London bus carried a Pepsi advert, then buy all the bus spaces; otherwise, stuff it.

Far too many of our legislators at all levels are lawyers; but one of the few advantages of this is that they will all know full well that, for the mischief maker, the more complex the contract, the better. This is clearly a very complex contract; and it is now London that has the IOC over a barrel, not vice versa!

Time to make mischief and, incidentally, do the sporting world a favour by pricking a few rather undemocratic bubbles!