Will the new Govt. bite the Asiad bait?

Quite expectedly, the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) has jumped into the fray and expressed its desire to bid for the 2019 Asian Games, recently  deserted by Hanoi, Vietnam.

In four months time, the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) will pick an alternative city following Hanoi’s pull-out, citing financial constraints.  Indonesia which hosted the 1962 Asiad in Jakarta and which lost Surabaya’s bid to Hanoi in 2012, is reportedly the front-runner to step in as replacement host.

The IOA has also expressed its keenness to go for yet another bid for the 2019 Games, after it was turned down by the outgoing government following the 2010 Commonwealth Games scam. The IOA had bid for the 2014 Games also, losing in a two-way contest to Incheon, 13-32 at Kuwait City in 2007.

The 2010 Commonwealth Games were projected, especially in the international media, for all the wrong reasons. Yet there should be lessons in plenty for the IOA and the government from the organizational drawbacks that the Games eventually highlighted.

CAG Report

More than all that the CAG report on the CWG also provides a detailed assessment about how the government had gone about believing what the IOA projected initially and how it had kept hiking the organizational budget without the IOA bringing on board any credible revenue-raising mechanism.

The ploy of a ‘loan’ that the IOA received from the government, which prompted former Sports Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar to suggest that the IOA could as well take that amount as loan from a bank, was nothing more than that, just a ploy to fool the public. The Organising Committee ended up in the red eventually and the Govvernment had agreed that it would write off losses.

Much of the hype created by vested interests about multi-discipline games boosting tourism, during and after the games, the economy getting a tremendous thrust, the games themselves generating enough revenue to considerably off-set the organizational expenses, the country earning goodwill among participating nations, the country raising its stock among the comity of nations and the games boosting sports standards in the city and the country have turned out to be myths.

The 1982 New Delhi Asian Games was a pleasant experience. It was done without the extravagance of the 2010 CWG, but with efficiency. The promise of a tourist rush did not come through, however, in 1982. Nor did it come in 2010 when hundreds of rooms remained unoccupied despite claims by the OC.

The marketing for the 1982 Asiad was a disaster with the firm engaged for the purpose eventually going into litigation against the Organising Committee. Nothing much was earned and even if some money did accrue legal costs would have wiped out profits if any. One is not sure whether the case has been settled even after three decades.

Biased projections

The 2010 Commonwealth Games proved a bigger disaster in terms of organization. Instead of earning praise and goodwill, the Games continue to be projected for the scams they generated. Unfortunately, the best publicized pictures of the games happened to be the ‘paan’-stained, muddy washbasins and toilets at the Games Village.

We did not hear much in the Indian media about what kind of water or toilets were provided by the Russians in Sochi during the last Winter Olympics. 

Today, as the IOA talks about bidding for the 2019 games, the plus point that will come up is sure to be Delhi’s capacity to host a big event because of its sports facilities and civic infrastructure. It is debatable whether the existing facilities would suffice five years from now to host an Asian Games with its 35-discipline sports programme and athletes from 45 member countries.

Should Delhi alone be the venue for multi-discipline games just in case the new government swallows the bait thrown by the IOA and India does get the nod from the OCA?

Why Delhi alone?

City and sports development planners will say it is better to opt for another city rather than concentrate on just one city. Japan picked Tokyo (1958) and Hiroshima (1994), China had Beijing (1990) and Guangzhou (2010), Korea had Seoul (1986) and, Busan (2002) and now has Incheon (2014). Only Thailand stuck to Bangkok for four editions of the Games, in 1966, 1970, 1978 and 1998.

It will be argued that India last hosted these Games back in 1982 and it would be 37 years when the games would return to their birth place (1951). “Isn’t it time for us to host another edition of these games?”, the question is bound to be asked.

We should look at the financial implications before jumping at it. New Delhi will need additional sports and civic infrastructure, though it can be managed with minimum extra venues and some sprucing up of existing stadia. The OCA may not agree and that is where the problem can arise.

That the Nehru Stadium renovation for CWG cost Rs 961 crore is a frightening thought, though!

Vietnam’s initial budget for hosting the 2019 Games, that of $150m was a thoroughly under-estimated projection. Experts said it could go up as high as five times. The Vietnamese were generally believed to be against such expenditure according to opinion polls and the government had to bow to their sentiments.

The cost factor

Busan spent $2.9 billion in 2002, Doha $2.8 billion in 2006 and Guangzhou anything between $17 billion and $20 billion in 2010 (if unofficial estimates are to be believed) for hosting the Asian Games. Incheon is expected to spend more than $1.6 billion. The cost could go up further.

The OCA, unlike the IOC in respect of the Olympics, does not extend any financial support to the host. On the contrary, it takes away a considerable portion of the local organising committee’s revenue earned through sponsorship, ticketing and merchandising.

According to a study conducted by Hong Kong in 2010, it was reported that the OCA takes 33 per cent of the all games revenue including 100 per cent of television income as “contribution”.

"I'm sure that if we reveal the OCA's requirements to host the Games, even the public will ask us not to host it because of the steep amount. It needs to be reviewed," Sieh Kok Chi, the secretary general of the Olympic Council of Malaysia (OCM), was quoted as saying in a recent report following Hanoi’s pull-out.

How much did we spend on the last CWG and what were the initial projections?

From Rs 1200 crore to Rs 18,532 crore!

According to the CAG report on the 2010 CWG, the cost of hosting the Games went up from a projected Rs 1200 crores in 2003 to Rs 18,532.31 crore by December, 2010! The final figures are perhaps still being sorted out. (The figures here include Rs 461 crore spent for the Commonwealth Youth Games in Pune).

The expected revenue projections went up from Rs 840 crore in the 2003 bid document to Rs 900 crore by March 2006 and Rs 1780 crore in the revalidated budget of July, 2008, according to the CAG. The OC finally made Rs 682.06 crore out of which Rs 440.43 crore had been realised by February 2011.

The CAG noted that revenue generation costs amounted to Rs 266.47 crore leaving a net revenue realization of just Rs 173.96 crore. Pittance when you look at the projections in 2008.

Verify IOA claims

The new Sports Ministry would do well to pick out the salient features of the excellent CAG report on CWG while presenting its note to the Cabinet, if the proposal reaches that stage. The IOA claims about revenue generation will have to be taken with a huge pinch of salt. Estimates of additional infrastructure and organisational expenses, not to speak of the OCA’s revenue-sharing pattern, will also have to be thoroughly vetted by the experts.

The new government would also do well to remember that the Games would come in any time between September and November 2019 by which time another General Elections would have been gone through and another Government would be in place!

 But, forgetting all that, should we spend, say four billion dollars, at a conservative estimate, for a sports event when our annual budgetary allocation for sports comes to just around Rs 1200 crore? We still lack basic infrastructure to help our ‘elite’ sportspersons prepare without handicaps for big events, or to encourage budding talent in several parts of the country.