sports

Tokyo closes books on costly, pandemic-delayed Olympics

23 Comments
By STEPHEN WADE

The requested article has expired, and is no longer available. Any related articles, and user comments are shown below.

© Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.

©2024 GPlusMedia Inc.

23 Comments
Login to comment

Let's hope they learned a valuable lesson..... STOP wasting tax payers money on glamour projects.

But they haven't....

9 ( +10 / -1 )

Corruption, fraud, lies, deceit, deaths of workers and the eventual suicide of the JOC's chief accountant, that's the legacy of Tokyo 2022. The Olympics is a disgrace, rolling colonialism funded by NBC and the IOC. It should be broken up and held on a permanent site in Greece, or just abandoned forever. Preferably the latter.

obladi 07:21 am JST

Basically the Olympics lost all credibility when Japan was forced to hold them during the pandemic.

Not quite - the IOC offered the Japanese government a postponement to 2022 but Prime Minister Shinzo Abe refused as his term was set to finish in autumn 2021, and he wanted to be leader when they were held. As it was he resigned in August 2020 citing "health reasons" and the hapless Suga inherited the horrorshow.

8 ( +12 / -4 )

Just to add to Alfie's comments, the Tokyo Olympics also took away construction workers and pushed up the cost of construction materials just as Tohoku was trying to rebuild after 3/11.

On a superficial level, the Olympics was spun as symbolizing Tohoku's recovery, but actually delayed it and made it more expensive.

6 ( +9 / -3 )

Basically the Olympics lost all credibility when Japan was forced to hold them during the pandemic.

5 ( +7 / -2 )

Everyone ever associated with this disaster, including the “O-Mo-Te-Na-Shi” girl should be publicly shamed for their roles in this multi-billion dollar freak show. I think the Scarlet letter “Y” is in order for the yen this will cost

Dentsu solidified its reputation as the Darth Vader of Japanese Corporations, the government shows how feckless it is, the JOC.... words fail me.

So the legacy is a bundle of under-used buildings, the upkeep for which is several tens of millions of dollars per year and a bottocks-load of additional debt that we, the tax payer will pay for the foreseeable future.

Are you listening, Sapporo? Hosting is a loser’s bet unless the host is an authoritarian dictatorship that doesn’t care about cost and wants the prestige that the games give its exploitive regime. Don’t do it!

Saudi 2032, anyone?

5 ( +8 / -3 )

And those books will be ripped up and shredded. Just like Nagano.

5 ( +7 / -2 )

Books closed all paperwork to be burnt. Next the winter version.

4 ( +8 / -4 )

Basically the Olympics lost all credibility when Japan was forced to hold them during the pandemic.

And also when Bach did the forcing and the City of Tokyo "weaseled" to Bach. In the end, Back got his millions and Tokyo got screwed.

4 ( +7 / -3 )

Wasteful and rotten to the core. The IOC, the Tokyo Organizing Committee, Dentsu, etc.

All of them and more. Not even a thank-you card for using my tax money.

3 ( +6 / -3 )

And we are forced to pay for this out of our tax payers money with the threat of being thrown in prison if we don’t. It is absolutely sickening.

3 ( +4 / -1 )

Dentsu Inc., the giant Japanese advertising and public relations company, may have benefited. It directed marketing for Tokyo 2020, received commissions for lining up sponsors, and has been linked to an IOC vote-buying scandal that was tied to Tokyo getting the Games.

And here is the main reason why the games happened, even if by now the impression that they left in the world is mostly negative because of the bribes, sexism, postponement, cancellations, expenses, etc.

3 ( +5 / -2 )

Here is a suggestion… how about abolishing the IOC permanently. It just unless and a waste.

3 ( +5 / -2 )

 $13 billion (1.4 trillion yen), the organizing committee said Tuesday in its final act before it is dissolved at the end of the month.However, the final price tag presented by organizers is lower than the $15.4 billion 

Lower? It's still two digit billion, from 15.4 billion to 13 billion.

2 ( +5 / -3 )

Dentsu Inc., the giant Japanese advertising and public relations company, may have benefited. It directed marketing for Tokyo 2020, received commissions for lining up sponsors, and has been linked to an IOC vote-buying scandal that was tied to Tokyo getting the Games.

The true gold medalists of the Pandemic Games who should be the feature of any Olympic documentary.

2 ( +6 / -4 )

Oh, stop complaining, everybody!

Just look at how the Japanese economy is thriving now after the Games, just like the LDP and JOC told us it would...oh, wait a minute...

This has always been a heist.

There is one undeniable fact: Japanese government entities, primarily the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, covered about 55% of the total expenses

Let's try that again:

Japanese government entities confiscated about 55% of the total expenses from honest taxpayers, to throw away on this white elephant which 80% of Japanese taxpayers did not want.

And now the books are closed, so we will never be able to even check if these figures are even close to accurate. My grandchildren yet unborn will be paying for this theft.

The IOC is an organised crime syndicate.

2 ( +6 / -4 )

Japanese government entities confiscated about 55% of the total expenses from honest taxpayers, to throw away on this white elephant which 80% of Japanese taxpayers did not want.

but as usual no one will be bothered to get out and vote when the time comes in this socialist state

2 ( +5 / -3 )

"As a total amount, whether this is huge or not - when it comes to that kind of talk it is not easy to evaluate."

Muto: "Huge" is such a nebulous concept. It depends on your perspective. From us who are drawing a salary from the public it is not huge. But from the public barely getting by who are paying for the pandemic games...

Great that the CEO of the committee's conclusion for which he gets paid a big salary is "it is not easy to evaluate".

0 ( +5 / -5 )

I wonder if they did some of the same cute accounting tricks the Atlanta Olympic Committee did when they said they broke even when they closed the books. The biggest one, discovered years later by reporters at teh AJC, was only counting the face value of the bonds issued for funding the games and not counting the 20 years worth of interest to be paid on them. This alone shaved doube digit millions from the total cost and made it looks like they cost less.

0 ( +2 / -2 )

There is no mention of an independent auditor in the article will take the figures the threw out there with a big back of salt.

Surprised, so many here believe the numbers despite the long history of book cooking, shredding and missing records,

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Regardless of the cost I kind of miss the Olympic fever we all experienced this time last year. Being united in emotion is what the world and Japan especially needs now.

-3 ( +1 / -4 )

And also when Bach did the forcing and the City of Tokyo "weaseled" to Bach. In the end, Back got his millions and Tokyo got screwed.

For a bunch of Banzai rightwing conservatives, the LDP and its sockpuppets sure acted as submissive as a geisha in front of that scumBach.

And now we see they can't wait to get reamed again by hosting the games in Hokkaido.

sasuga nihon

-4 ( +4 / -8 )

Login to leave a comment

Facebook users

Use your Facebook account to login or register with JapanToday. By doing so, you will also receive an email inviting you to receive our news alerts.

Facebook Connect

Login with your JapanToday account

User registration

Articles, Offers & Useful Resources

A mix of what's trending on our other sites