TOKYO — The total bill for the Tokyo Olympics is expected to reach around $13.6 billion, the organizing committee’s president and chief operating officer, Toshiro Muto, said Thursday.
Muto hinted to reporters who met with him after an executive committee meeting that the total amount of the bill might be “a bit lower”, without offering a reason to explain his point of view. The organizing committee will be dissolved in June, and that’s when a report will be released publicly.
“We analyze every little detail,” Muto said. But there is no main reason why I believe the bill will be slightly lower. There is no simple explanation. »
The organizing committee said in December that the total bill for the Tokyo Olympics – which was postponed for a year due to the coronavirus pandemic – would be reduced by around $1.8 billion from forecasts. set at $15.4 billion a year earlier. This drop was due, among other things, to a reduction in the workforce and the absence of spectators in the stands.
The total bill for hosting the Olympics is always hard to come by, and there are still many debates today about the costs attributable specifically to hosting the biggest sporting event on the planet. Several auditor general reports tabled in the run-up to the Tokyo Games suggested that the costs could reach double those anticipated.
An analysis by the University of Oxford concluded that the Tokyo Games are the most expensive in Olympic history.
But regardless of the total bill for Tokyo, $5.9 billion will be absorbed by the private sector. The balance will come from the various levels of the Japanese government.
Muto swears, however, that it was never a bad investment, because the expertise acquired in Tokyo will be used by the leaders of Sapporo, who intend to apply for the 2030 Winter Games.
