39 Steps to Olympic Fiasco

1. SIZE.

"The infrastructure left behind after an Olympics would be too big for the city."- Bob Scott, leader of failed Manchester bid speaking of Dublin Games.

2. CLIMATE.

Remember last year's Leinster hurling final, rats escaping from the sewers around, Croke Park before they drowned? Meteorology is the fifth of the 19 theme's under which the IOC assesses bids.

3. POORLY EQUIPPED.

"Like Albania," concedes Jonathan Irwin of DISC. The last five bidding processes have been won by cities with more than 60 per cent of their facilities in place.

4. LOCAL POLITICS.

Until the Irish Olympic Committee are behind the bid, it can go nowhere.

5. IOC POLITICS.

Here's the pecking order for the next three Games. Rome 2004. Cape Town 2008. Beijing 2012. By 2016 it will be 20 years since an American Games and London will be howling. Tyros like Dublin have no realistic chance. Most IOC members will have learned of the bid through Ireland's IOC member, Pat Hickey.

6. UNDERPOPULATION.

Atlanta (pop: 3.2 million) hub of the south eastern US (pop: 41 million) has had acute troubles recruiting the close on 50,000 volunteers needed for the Games.

7.TAXES.

The current tax rate is already too great for the Government to consider the risk of further burden if the Games go wrong. Montreal taxpayers are still paying for the 1976 fiasco. Atlanta predicts a strong economic effect, but Spain's experience from 1992 is markedly different. Tourism increased 3.4 per cent in 1993. Debt, recession and unemployment also increased. The Games left a debt of £1.6 billion for Spain. "If the local market can react to what we have done," said deputy mayor Joan Clos, "we will not only not lose money but make it on a very big scale. It is a risk." Ireland doesn't have a local market big enough to react in the appropriate way.

8. HUMILIATION.

Brasilia withdrew reluctantly from the 2000 bidding after the IOC evaluation committee noted the following: general standards below requirements; virtually no adequate existing sports facilities; commission expressed concern at financial viability; bid committee lacks sports expertise; no sports element apparent in planning the bid; language difficulties widely apparent; bid appears motivated largely by local politics; inquiry commission visit poorly organised by bid committee.

9. PAST EFFORTS.

Equestrian Games sponsorship business has been a PR disaster.

10. DEEP END.

50 metre pools?

11. LEGACY. The Government recently bailed out our 3,000 capacity National Basketball Centre. In Montreal, the Olympic stadium is used 200 days a year now. We have no usage requirement of even a fraction of that scale.

12. EXPERIENCE.

No history of staging big sporting events.

13. NO COMMERCIAL CLOUT.

Post 1984 pattern: Seoul was centre of Adidas drive into Asia. Adidas? The shoe company at that time controlled 51 per cent of International Sports and Leisure, the marketing arm of the IOC. Adidas's Horst Dassler campaigned strongly for Seoul. The 1996 Centennial Games did not go to Athens, the cradle of the movement. They went to Atlanta, home of Coca Cola, the Games' oldest and biggest sponsor.

14. REGIONAL POLITICS.

London has been promised £1 billion from the British lottery for a bid. London staged the Games as an emergency measure in 1948 and has always known that the Olympic movement owes it a favour.

15. TV POLITICS.

"I think NBC should and will have some influence, but it won't be decisive. Bet on Rome for 2004. It would be an ideal back drop for a broadcaster." - John Krimsky, US Olympic Committee deputy general.

16. TELECOMMUNICATIONS.

12,000 wired phones, 2,000 miles of optic cable, 39 exchanges. Hello, Telecom? 17. SECURITY.

As of late 1992, we had fewer than 11,000 gardai. Atlanta is deploying 30,000 trained security personnel, plus another 56,000 people working on venue security, stewarding and crowd control. Remember Ireland v England, Lansdowne Road, February 1995?

18. TRANSPORTATION.

9,000 car fleet? 2,000 air conditioned buses?

19. RUNNING TRACK.

Croke Park hasn't got one and is unlikely to get one. The potential usage doesn't justify the expense.

20. TRACK EILE

Croke Park has nowhere to put a warm up track.

21. PRESS FACILITIES.

When it is finished things may be different, but at present Croke Park has the worst media facilities of any major stadium in the Europe. No monitors, no phonelines, no working centre. That's before we get to the frills.

22. TOO MUCH IS CONDITIONAL.

Jonathan Irwin's claim at yesterday's launch that Sydney had "virtually nothing" is in accurate. The IOC evaluation committee noted in the summer of 1993 that Sydney had eight venues of Olympic standard, three needing renovation and three under construction. When the vote was taken Sydney had almost 70 per cent of the venues in place. As a matter of interest, here's what they said:

- Sydney's bid offers conditions over and above IOC requirements.

- Safe environment.

- Widespread support from federal and state governments, business community and environmental groups.

- Compact bid. Competitors in 14 sports will be able to walk to venues.

- Bid gives priority to the athletes, particularly with construction of single Olympic village.

- Free travel for all athletes and officials and free shipment of horses and equipment.

- Excellent hotel accommodation.

- Excellent transportation.

23. FIGURES UNREALISTIC.

"Worst case" scenario of spending £271 million on venues for 2008 or 2012. Atlanta (needing to build from scratch only the main stadium, the tennis arenas, main swimming venue and equestrian area) has, spent $467,727,000 on venues at 1996 prices. Manchester calculated venue costs: at £950 million in its ill fated bid for the 2000 Games.

24. BANKRUPTCY.

Government guarantee of Games financial well being is too great a risk for a small country.

25. SPONSORSHIP.

Is unlikely to arrive in sufficient amounts to justify a Dublin Games. Atlanta, home of so many major companies (730 of the Fortune 1,000 companies have offices there), only just made break even and was $85 million short at the start of 1996.

26. NO SPORT PLAN.

Dublin has as yet no cohesive plan for sport. Bernard Allen's strategy group is chaired by John Treacy, who is on the record as saying that bringing the Games to Dublin is an unrealistic proposition.

27. PUBLIC SECTOR COMMITMENT.

"We will never award the Games in the future to a city in the United States or elsewhere which has no significant public sector commitment, either in the form of financial contribution or at the very least in the form of a guarantee to meet the necessary costs of the organising of the Games." - Dick Pound, vice president IOC, speaking in Washington, spring, 1995.

28. COMFORT STATIONS.

"Dublin couldn't provide the toilet facilities for an Olympic Games." - Ireland's IOC member, Pat Hickey.

29. SECURITY.

Theme Six for the IOC. Staging the Games in a city 90 miles from the border of a war ravaged statelet may cause some concern. Certainly the superficial impression most people have of the Troubles will be a marketing difficulty. 30. CO-OPERATION NORTH.

The idea floated by DISC of staging part of the Games in Northern Ireland is forbidden in the Olympic Charter.

31. SENTIMEMALITY.

DISC overestimate the appeal to the IOC of the Games being part of the national healing process. The IOC are not sentimental. Witness reunited Berlin getting wiped out in the last bidding process. Witness Athens being denied the Centennial Games.

32. SUMMER TIME.

The GAA's enthusiasm for athletics in Croke Park seems slightly overstated by DISC. Liam Mulvihill's letter to DISC (July 1995) states that modifications must be made "before Phase Two", and that the event should be at a time of year "which would allow track to be prepared at a non critical time for GAA fixtures." The GAA has just moved all inter county hurling to the summer.

33. NAIVETE.

Gay Mitchell has stated that he thinks we will win votes because of our missionary past and likable emigrants.

34. BID OR BUST.

DISC overstates the benefits of merely bidding. Berlin, Nagoya and Amsterdam had bids riven by protests. In Berlin, the acrimony continues. Tashkent and Milan withdrew from the last race amid acrimony and division. Brasilia was asked to withdraw. Cape Town has suffered protests from the Azanian Peoples Organisation. Glasgow, Paris, Brussels and Copenhagen have all considered bids and decided against, the latter two for want of government guarantees.

35. NO BIDDING HISTORY.

Gay Mitchell claims that the mayor of Barcelona told him that when he first suggested bringing the Games to Barcelona the general populace were inclined to send for the men in the white coats. In fact, the city had bid for the Games three times (1924, 1936 and 1972). In 1936, just before the Civil War broke out, the city was to stage a People's Games as a protest against the Berlin Games. As part of their bid, they had already built an Olympic stadium. Atlanta is the only city to have won the Games on first bid.

36. IOC VOTING PATTERNS.

Ten years, £250 million of British government money, a superb technical bid and thousands of miles of travel yielded Manchester nine votes, four of which were always secure (Princess Anne and Mary Glen Haigh, the British IOC members, Grand Duc Jean of Luxembourg and Princess Nora of Liechtenstein).

37. OLD WORLD.

The IOC looks to Asia, Africa and Latin America as the future of Olympism. With so many rapidly developing young cities and economies, the chances of Dublin being given a chance to piggyback into the 20th century on the shoulders of the Olympic movement are slim.

38. Theme 10 for the IOC is "Sports". Theme Nine is "General Sports Organisation". Let's keep quiet about the scandal of the National Lottery funding.

39. NARROW MARGIN.

Projected operating profit of $30 million leaves virtually no breathing space for cost overruns and revenue deficits. TV income for the 2008 Games is already ascertainable. DISC, however, hasn't factored in the increasingly shrill demands of the International Federation for a slice of Games revenue, the catalyst behind last December's decision to cut the host city's TV percentage.