The deficit is more than 300 million euros.
Congratulations to Italian taxpayers as you have won the right to pay down the debt of the 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Olympics’ organizing committee. The number is €310 and that is about $363 million US. The local organizers asked for the International Olympic Committee to help bail them out and the IOC response was, sorry but this is your mess to clean up. Construction delays, especially at the Milan Olympic arena, were blamed for 230 million euros, about $269 million US, of the debt. There were other factors as well. Commercial income streams, including sponsorships and ticket sales, did not meet projected targets. In other words, the 2026 Milan-Cortina effort was another failure, something that is constant with the mega-event known as the Olympics. The Olympic legacy is debt, debt and even more debt. The International Olympic Committee does tell bidding cities upfront that you better put some money away because chances are you are going to need it since we aren’t going to pay off the event’s debt.
Yet politicians in various countries keep bidding for the event knowing that the event is going to be costing taxpayers money and agreeing to things like inconveniencing workers during the event by closing up roads or throwing covers over billboards in an area because the ads on municipal billboards might interfere with Olympics’ sponsors. Every potential host city ignores history. The 1976 Montréal Summer Olympics is a textbook example. In 1970, it was estimated the cost of the Montréal stadium would be about $134 million Canadian. When the final bill was sent to taxpayers for money going to pay for the building in 2006, the estimated cost of the stadium was about $1.6 billion Canadian. For thirty years, the city, the Province of Québec and Canadian citizens paid down the debt. Welcome to that club Italian taxpayers.
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