Olympic Games in Prague, fact or fiction?
On September 5th, the Mayor of Prague Pavel Bem together with the President of the Czech Olympic Committee Milan Jirasek signed the letter in which they applied for candidature for organizing Olympic Games in 2016. Is it an unreal dream or a good and achievable idea? The Czech nation is riven. Some people believe that Olympic Games could make the Czech Republic visible and that we can make a profit on it. On the other hand there are opinions concerning corruption and economic collapse. I will write some informations about this “big action” for you to make your own opinion.
Olympic Games will cost 135 milliard CZK. This amount was counted by financial experts from PriceWaterhouse Coopers who produced economic analysis of the project “Praha olympijska” (Olympic Prague). “The state will share approximately 28% costs which is about 37 milliard CZK (1,23 milliard €) and 660 millions €) fall to Prague. The rest of the costs will be covered by revenues of International Olympic Committee for media rights, tickets etc.”, said Tomas Petera, the chairman of generaly beneficial company Praha olympijska. He also said that all concept of Olympic Games will be completed in the middle of November and that the development of approximately 130 sport fields in 70 towns or places in the whole Czech Republic is being envisaged. However there are other expenses for building infrastructure – motorways, beltway in Prague etc. which will cost other 487 milliard CZK (16,23 milliards €). There could be also other cities hosting Olympic Games; for example: Ostrava, Olomouc, Brno, Jihlava, Plzen, Racice and Lipno.
The Czech President Vaclav Klaus is belongs people who are not obviously for Olympic Games. He sees the estimations of profitable Olympic Games as impossible. According to him, If we want to make the Olympics, we should stand for it and don’t look at the costs. He also claims that we should simultaneously say that the Games will be at the expense of a lot of things.
So what do you think now? Is the Czech Republic prepaired for that big event? Or you think that there are other things which should be financed and Olympic Games are a waste of money…