The current global situation has been exacerbated in recent times due to poor leadership and a great deal of misinformation being spread online and via a number of media outlets.
If you want proof of that the last 24 hours in terms of whether the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games will take place as planned are a case in point.
Twenty Four hours before the writing this it was announced that Canada was withdrawing from Tokyo 2020 if the Olympic Games were to go ahead as planned. Headlines around the globe, from many supposedly reputable news outlets claimed that Australia had also withdrawn from the Olympic Games. Here is one such headline, “Australia and Canada Pull Out of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.” When in fact the official statement from the Australian Olympic Committee was that they had ‘told their athletes to prepare for a postponement.’
Understandably many National Olympic Committees are calling for the Olympic Games to be postponed, something that has never happened since the modern Olympic Games began at the end of the 19th century.
Ironically the 1940 Olympic Games which were planned for Tokyo were initially postponed, and then cancelled. These were cancelled because the World was at war. The rhetoric from some politicians, which has been irresponsible, have likened the tackling of the Coronavirus to a war.
A number of nations have been vocal in their call for the Olympic Games, planned for the end of July to be pushed back until at least 2021. It sounds like a simple solution, but it would have huge ramifications. Postponement would cause obvious logistical nightmares, but would clearly be far less painful than cancellation for the host, sponsors, broadcasters and the many other facets linked to the Games that have tens of billions of dollars invested in the four yearly event.
This month Goldman Sachs estimated that if the Olympics don’t happen, the Japanese economy could face some USD$60 billion in losses. These estimated losses were linked directly to the event, and also indirectly, taking into account the effect on tourism, domestic consumption, exports and capital investment.
No one except the IOC Executive Board – which remarkably is not listed on their website – knows the details of the various contracts that are in place for broadcasters and sponsors. Some have surmised that there may be clauses in these contracts that result in the IOC being held accountable for a certain percentage of lost revenue should the games not take place as planned. This is not as far-fetched as it may sound.
On June 6, 2011, NBC Universal announced that it had acquired the television rights for the 2014, 2016, 2018 and 2020 Olympics; The Winter Olympics in 2014 and 2018 and Summer Games in 2016 and 2020. The entire package was worth USD$4.38 billion. Which any mathematician can work out is around USD$1 billion per Olympiad. You would not invest that amount of money without a fall-back clause. NBC would have been planning the broadcast for well over a year, and commenced putting various components in place for July, so would clearly want to be compensated if a postponement were to occur.
Sponsors may have built a global campaign around their involvement with the Olympic Games. That would have taken a lot of time and planning. Suddenly the Games don’t happen, and the multi-million dollar global campaign fails to eventuate. It is therefore understandable that they too would have a clause that protects their investment.
It would not come as a surprise if some of the Olympic nations asked to be compensated if a postponement were to occur, as they too would have already outlaid money based around a July start.
More worrying though would be the payments received from the IOC by the International Federations. The International Sporting Federations of the Olympic sports receive money from the IOC on a four year basis to spend on growing and developing their sport. This is usually given out after the Olympic Games have been completed, and many sports rely on that revenue to continue to operate during the next four year cycle. One International Federation it is believed received their funding at the end of 2019, a year in advance, as they were in financial difficulty. So how will that affect them if the future Olympics get pushed back a year? How many sports could survive without that injection of funds, or if the payment was delayed a year?
Where would a postponement place the Paris Games of 2024? Would that also be pushed back a year? Where would a postponement leave many of the national coaches whose contracts expire after the Olympic Games? Will they be allowed to carry on and see their athletes through to the Games in 2021? Some may have already accepted positions in other nations for the next Olympic cycle of four years. Where would it leave many of the National Olympic programs whose Government funding is based on a four year cycle, and performances at the Olympic Games?
While postponement makes perfect sense to most, there is so much more tied up in an event such as this. Some are saying that if the IOC fail to negotiate its way through a number of issues, minimising its potential financial losses it could find itself bankrupt, and hence the delay in making a decision.
What is not helping the situation at the moment are headlines claiming that Olympic Games “will be postponed” or as one news outlet boasted “Tokyo Olympics Postponed Due To Coronavirus.”
Where have these come from? Incredibly they come from someone who is no longer on the Executive Board of the IOC. A former member of the Executive Board of the IOC. So why are his comments being given coverage? Don’t they simply add to the confusion when all everyone wants is a clear picture? The person is question is no longer relevant.
On Sunday evening the IOC announced that it would take the next month to decide how to proceed with the 2020 Olympics in light of the coronavirus pandemic. Soon after Canada announced their withdrawal from the Olympic Games if they are to go ahead. Then one of their former Vice Presidents, Canadian Dick Pound said in an interview that the Games would be postponed. He may be right but why would he make such a statement unofficially?
The 78 year old lawyer who swam at the 1960 Rome Olympics has always been an advocate for fair play. In 1978, Pound was elected to the International Olympic Committee and was then put in charge of negotiating television and sponsorship deals. He was on the IOC executive committee for 16 years. He was a vice-president from 1987 to 1991 and again from 1996 to 2000. At one time he was a candidate for the presidency of the IOC. Interestingly he was an outspoken critic of the corruption that occurred within the IOC on President Juan Antonio Samaranch’s watch, but at the same time was a strong supporter of his leadership.
Pound went on to help found the World Anti-Doping Agency, based in Montreal, and became the organisation’s first president. He held that role from 1999 to 2007.
In 1988, when he was Vice President of the IOC. He sat in the stands as fellow Canadian Ben Johnson won the 100m Gold medal. Johnson as everyone knows then failed a doping test. He became the first Olympic Gold medallist to be stripped of his medal due to failing a drug test. Sadly he would not be the last. At the appeal hearing Pound defended Johnson. Maybe being lied to by the athlete prior to that hearing is what strengthened his resolve to try and cut out drug cheats. Yet many asked at the time as a member of the Canadian Olympic Committee since 1968 and then president from 1977-1982, surely he would have heard the rumours, and as a former athlete known that Johnson was taking a banned substance?
In 2005 while in his role at WADA the man who took the Gold medal from Johnson, Carl Lewis was extremely critical of Pound, and claimed that he had an axe to grind with US Athletics because of Seoul 1988. He said at the time “I am a little tired of Dick Pound doing all his talking.”
No doubt the IOC is as well. If as is suspected they are working hard in the background to negotiate the best outcome for the Olympic Games and all Olympic sports in the long term, they could do without individuals stepping into the spotlight and commenting independently.
After all as we have seen in the past two months it simply leads to misinformation, incorrect reporting and confusion.
