Julian Drew
DESPITE the lingering suspicion in international circles that Cape Town sneaked in through the back door to become a finalist in the race to host the 2004 Olympic Games, the Mother City can now count itself as a very real contender for the elusive prize which will be awarded by the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) 113 members on September 5.
And while there are still those who believe that Cape Town will struggle to organise the biggest show on earth, the IOC is clearly not among their number. “No city gets to this stage of the Olympic bid without the IOC being completely satisfied that it is capable of hosting the Olympic Games successfully because each of the cities in the final group can win,” says Bid Company CEO Chris Ball.
“It was made quite clear to us that the IOC has every confidence in each one of the cities. So we start with the same certificate of approval, if you like, as the other cities and it’s now down to the election process.”
With the high technical standard of the five finalist cities – Athens, Buenos Aires, Cape Town, Rome and Stockholm – it is expected that other factors will now play an important role in the eventual outcome, and it is here that the geopolitical card will weigh in heavily for both Cape Town and Buenos Aires.
With Europe having missed out on two Olympic Games – after Atlanta and then Sydney won the last two bids – traditionalists now claim that the Games should return to the continent which has hosted 14 of the 23 Summer Olympic Games to date. But as the nomination of Atlanta to host the Centennial Olympic Games showed only too well, tradition counts for little these days.
With the advent of modern telecommunications and the global village – which is matched by the equally pervasive global economy – the means to consume and fund the Games are no longer a critical consideration. The IOC too is a global organisation and it increasingly likes to be seen as such.
Outside of Europe, and particularly in the United States – the country with the most Olympic clout because its television and corporate dollars underwrite the Games – there is growing currency to the question of whether the Olympics should not rather go to South America or Africa for the first time.
And although the IOC’s 113-strong membership is still heavily weighted in favour of Europe with its 48 members, many of the other members could favour the two outsiders. Indeed, Buenos Aires – which received an extremely favourable appraisal by the IOC’s evaluation commission – is now considered a real threat to the three European candidates.
Cape Town too is the focus of serious discussion by informed commentators. Although in the final analysis it is impossible to say how anybody votes in the secret ballot employed by the IOC in the election and talk of voting blocks is viewed with some scepticism, Africa’s 20 members – along with some of the Asian, Caribbean and Australasian countries who might identify with Cape Town’s cause – could also play a leading role in September’s big showdown in Lausanne.
What is certain is that this year’s election is likely to be the most closely and keenly contested yet and it is the lobbying campaign over the next six months that will prove crucial. For the five cities this will mean rolling out the red carpet for as many IOC members, international sports federation heads and other people of influence in Olympic circles as can be enticed into paying a visit and this phase of the bid does not come cheap.
That is particularly so when you sit at the bottom of Africa and have to fork out first class air tickets for a few hundred people. “We plan to spend around R40-million over the next few months,” says Ball.
While there were claims from bid insiders in January that the Bid Company was technically insolvent, Ball says there is no cause for concern over funding for the coming campaign. “We have not got cash in the bank but we have a strong commitment from our sponsors who provide money on an ongoing basis,” says Ball.
The bid’s financial director, Michael Fuller, elaborates further. “Our liabilities at the end of December were greater than our assets but we had R23- million in signed contracts coming in at the end of January. From an operational point of view it was just a difference in cash flow but we are not insolvent. We are probably always going to operate close to that anyway because of the way our contracts are structured,” says Fuller.
The Bid Company is still looking for another R20-million according to Fuller but R3,6-million of that was pledged earlier this week when the Cape Metropolitan Council, board of directors, Industrial Development Corporation and Grinaker Construction made contributions. The deficit in required funds has led to rumours within the bid this week that Raymond Ackerman – who parted company with the bid in acrimonious circumstances in 1995 – could be back in some capacity together with an increased sponsorship from Pick `n Pay.
Of the R40-million to be spent in the run- up to September, R12-million is for the international lobbying campaign, R8-million for international and local marketing as well as consultation with local communities, and approximately R5-million for sports events to promote the bid.
These events – the world fencing championships and the junior world championships for both cycling and weightlifting – cannot afford to go wrong and the Bid Company must commit itself to them to ensure they are more like the highly successful world cross country championships than the disastrous modern pentathlon world cup final of last year. The rest of the R40-million will go on the normal running costs of the bid.
Ball believes that “our task is to get the members of the IOC to fall in love with Cape Town, appreciate its charms, understand the spirit of the city and see what kind of opportunity the Games offer for Cape Town. They must realise that ours is not just an Olympic dream. It can be done and it will have a major impact on this region of the world at vast credit to the IOC.”
But as close observers of Olympic bidding are only too aware, convincing some IOC members of the merits of a city’s bid is not always enough to secure their votes. The often quoted Lords of the Rings and its follow up The New Lords of Rings – intriguing exposes of the inner workings of the IOC – provide clear evidence that some IOC members are not averse to taking bidding cities for a ride.
The IOC, ever conscious of its image, has produced strict guidelines outlining limitations on the number of companions IOC members can take with them, the length of their stay and the value of gifts they may receive. These rules, however, are almost impossible to enforce and infringements are seldom reported. If they do come to light it is only after the election is over.
“The IOC asked in the briefing session on Friday afternoon that all the cities comply with the bidding rules and of course we will do that,” says Ball.
Those cities which follow Cape Town’s route of honest endeavour could find themselves at a major disadvantage, however, against a city like Rome. The de facto head of Rome’s bid is the wily street fighter of sporting politics, Primo Nebiolo – the president of the International Amateur Athletic Federation being one of his many sporting titles – and his dubious methods of winning elections are legendary. Just like Ben Johnson in the Games themselves some people will stop at nothing to win the biggest prize of all.