Crisis Management 101

This morning's staff meeting at London 2012 HQ was probably a busy one after Channel 4's Dispatches uncovered some pretty damaging truths about the real costs of the 2012 Olympics.


Despite the warnings that the games would be astronomically over budget, barely finished on time and be a massive drain on resources, those in power tried to convince us all, even those of us outside the M25, that's we'd all benefit from London hosting the Games of the XXX Olympiad.

And last night, Channel 4 told us what only the most foolish already knew, and much more besides.

Economic research, previously hidden by the DCMS, blew out of the water the idea that we'd all be winners in the Olympic race. The 2012 organisers tried to sell us the idea that Olympic teams would be setting up camp at a hotel in Yorkshire, going for a brisk warm-up at a council-owned athletics facility in Hunslet and then jumping on the bus down the the Olympic Park. All of which was an idea that got no further than the imagination of Sebastian Coe's sound-bites and press releases.
In total, London will see investment of around £5.9bn whilst the rest of the UK loses around £4bn, that's before you factor in lost Lottery funding.

That brings us nicely onto the point that most of the press have picked up from the documentary, Seb Coe's involvement in the games, with Dispatches alleging that he had benefited to the tune of £200,000 in his role as an after-dinner speaker.

Now I'll hold my hands up and admit that, at times, Dispatches can be as objective as a Michael Moore film but in this case, it summed up what a lot of us already suspected about the Olympics. The bid party knew they had to drum up support, and so they were going to at whatever costs.

What stood out for me personally though is the number of private individuals involved and why some of these organisations were headed by very public figures. Not just some no-mark MP, but London Mayor Ken Livingston and Sport Minister Tessa Jowell for instance.

All of that allowed major public figures to conveniently skirt obligations under the Freedom of Information Act. This coming from a government that is trying to sell the idea of ID cards to us with the line "If you've nothing to hide then you've nothing to worry about."

It's little wonder that support for the game is at an all-time low. Once the Olympic bandwagon has well and truly packed-up and moved on to the next unsuspecting city, Sebastian Coe's "legacy" will be nothing more than dilapidated, grass-roots sports facilities starved of lottery funding, a East London community dismantled, an Olympic village sold off to wealthy property developers and a budget over-run that would make Montreal look like a bargain.