Image source, Reuters
Since the 2016 Olympic Games and over the course of 16 years, the Olympic Games have been held on different continents, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 2016 in South America, then Tokyo, Japan in 2020 in Asia, then Paris, France this year in Europe, in Los Angeles in 2028 in North America, and finally Brisbane, Australia in 2032.
The Olympic Games were first held in 1896 in Athens, Greece, and remained between Europe and North America for 12 consecutive sessions, until they left them for the first time to Australia in Melbourne in 1956. They were held in Asia several times, starting with Tokyo 1964 in Japan. About eight years ago, South America succeeded in what Africa could not, when it hosted the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, so that the Olympic rings appeared in all continents except Africa, despite the submission of several previous requests to host, which are more than a hundred years old.
Previous attempts
The first request was in 1916, and the first city outside Europe and North America to submit a request to organize it was Alexandria, Egypt, but the organization went to Berlin, before the tournament was cancelled due to World War I.
Twenty years later, Alexandria submitted a new application, but the organization in 1936 also went to Berlin, and for 68 consecutive years no other African city submitted a request to organize the Olympics, until Cape Town, South Africa, in 2004, which was organized by the Greek capital, Athens.
The last African bid came from Egypt and a third attempt was made by Cairo in 2008, but it failed to convince the International Olympic Committee of its ability to organize the event, which went to the Chinese capital, Beijing.
Asia’s first bid was accepted for Tokyo 1940, but the tournament was cancelled due to World War II, and Australia’s first bid was accepted for Melbourne 1956, with the Australian bid being accepted twice more, making Australia host the event three times out of four attempts, unlike the African bids which were rejected.
How is the selection made?
The International Olympic Committee would compare the candidate cities, and if no file received a majority of votes, the file with the lowest number of votes would be excluded and the vote would be repeated, until the city that would host the event was decided upon.
The city should prepare, within the available time period, to provide accommodation for the various missions, with the availability of infrastructure such as stadiums, transportation and roads, the provision of the necessary security, and the economic ability to bear the expenses of the Olympics, while paying attention to sustainable development and avoiding environmental pollution.
But the bidding process has changed starting with the 2032 cycle, as there is now a dialogue between the city requesting to host and the International Olympic Committee, before the initial approval of the file and the adoption of the preferred files, and then the cities compete to choose one of them.
Financial challenges
The huge financial costs are an obstacle for cities whose bids do not seem ambitious enough, which increases the difficulties faced by any African bid to host the Olympics in competition with a European, American or even Asian bid.
In the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, with the jump in television broadcasting rights, Los Angeles became the first city to make a profit from the Olympics since 1932, with $250 million, which encouraged countries to submit bids to host, from two bids in 1988 to 12 in 2004, which led the International Olympic Committee to choose the files with the highest spending.
Starting with the basic application file, which costs between $50 and $100 million, it is spent on planning, bringing in experts and consultants to submit the file, and organizing promotional events. Tokyo, for example, paid $150 million to consulting firms to develop the application plan in 2016, then reduced the expenses to $75 million in 2020.
Also, the cost of insurance increased after the events of September 11. In Sydney 2000, it reached $250 million, and in the next session, Athens 2004, $1.5 billion was spent on insurance. Since then, security costs have been between $1-2 billion.
In Rio 2016, the cost of hosting the Olympics amounted to $20 billion, while the budget in the initial plan was only $2.8 billion. The International Olympic Committee requested 40,000 units to accommodate the players, which were not rented after the end of the tournament, and their maintenance costs amounted to $14 million per year. In addition, electricity was cut off from the Olympic stadium for two months due to the high maintenance costs and the lack of need for these facilities after the tournament.
The costs are divided into two parts, infrastructure and operating costs. The host city bears the costs of infrastructure, while the costs of organizing the games are covered by the Olympic Committee, sponsors, broadcasting rights and tickets.
The Olympic Village must host more than ten thousand athletes and five thousand coaches, and include training equipment, restaurants, entertainment facilities and hospitals, with huge infrastructure and security, making the matter financially complicated. As the costs of organizing increased, the number of candidacy files for hosting began to diminish, until the right to organize the 2024 and 2028 editions was granted to Los Angeles in 2017 without a vote.
While the organization may have been profitable in the past, it is no longer a profitable investment, and the organization has become very expensive, especially for countries that are not among the richest in the world or the strongest economically, including of course African countries.
Non-economic gains
Cities are not only looking to organize for financial and promotional gain, but tourism is also stimulated and jobs are created. The host country has a larger number of participants in each competition and thus a greater chance of winning more medals, especially since the organizing committee has the right to nominate a new sport to be added to the Games schedule to ensure more follow-up to the tournament, based on the popularity of the sport in the host country, as happened in Tokyo 2020 with the addition of karate and baseball/softball, which are popular sports in Japan.
In 29 Olympic Games, the American or Soviet delegation won the largest number of gold medals 20 times, and the host country won the largest number of gold medals nine times, which means that the organization helps in obtaining more medals. Japan came third in Tokyo 2020, Britain came third in London 2012, and so on.
The country’s ranking is always higher as long as the tournament is held on its land, which means that the gains are not only financial, but the obvious problem is that the budget for organizing the tournament always exceeds the budget expected when applying for the organization.
New Administrative Capital 2036
A number of cities from Indonesia, Turkey, India and Chile have officially applied to host the event, while several cities have expressed their intention to apply to host, from South Korea, China, Canada, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, and a number of European cities from Hungary, Germany, Denmark and Italy.
Only one African city has expressed its intention to run, and that is the Egyptian New Administrative Capital, which includes the Egypt International Olympic City, which includes the Egypt Stadium with a capacity of more than 93,000 spectators, two covered halls with a capacity of 15,000 and 8,000 spectators, an Olympic village, a swimming pool complex, and stadiums for various sports, hotels, and other things that aim to host major sporting events, and of course at the top of them is the 2036 Olympic Games.
Last April, Egypt’s Minister of Youth and Sports, Ashraf Sobhi, announced the country’s intention to bid to host the Olympics, and said that officials were still examining technical, logistical and economic matters before submitting an official request.
In 2026, the Senegalese capital Dakar will host the Youth Olympics, postponed from 2022 due to Corona, and its decent appearance will support global acceptance of the New Administrative Capital 2036 file.
The issue of sustainable development will also be considered greatly, using already-prepared buildings, and relying on already-prepared facilities, and they will not be built just for the tournament, to avoid what happened in previous tournaments such as Rio de Janeiro.
The committee that will consider the requests to host the 2036 Olympics confirmed that there is no specific date for announcing the winner of the honor of organizing, but that will not be before 2026 or 2027, which will give Egypt another advantage in the event of better preparation during the next two years, and Dakar’s success in hosting the 2026 Youth Olympics.
While the current President of the International Olympic Committee, Thomas Bach, praised the infrastructure preparations in the new administrative capital, saying that it is on the right track, and that he had always wanted to see the Olympics in an African city.
The Secretary-General of the Egyptian Olympic Committee, Sherif El-Erian, said that the International Olympic Committee was right not to organize the event in Africa before, because very few African cities are capable of hosting it in terms of infrastructure, in only three countries: Egypt, Morocco and South Africa, and it is time for Egypt to be ready for such a major event. He also stressed that Egypt will not spend billions on the tournament, because the country is already ready and has the necessary facilities, in terms of infrastructure such as roads, airports, hotels, security and others, in addition to the stadiums with Olympic standards that already exist.
Image source, Getty Images
South Africa hosted the 2010 FIFA World Cup, and Morocco will co-host the 2030 World Cup with Spain and Portugal. Many world championships in various games have been held on the continent, which will host the Youth Olympics, and it seems that it is the turn of the adult Olympics to be held in Africa.