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.

Now you know that the IOC have lost it

Whilst all around you are losing their heads, you should lose yours as well so as not to look stupid. That's presumably the motto at the IOC.





Now in some respects, I can accept that the chairman of the IOC's coordination committee Daniel Oswald quite likes the newly unveiled London 2012 logo, after all, that would be a matter of taste. He thinks that it's modern, dynamic, youthful, all the usual meaningless phrases that marketing people tend to come out with when trying to justify an excessively large invoice.
I on the other hand, as well as most of the British public, think that the 2012 logo shit but each to their own.

The worrying thing comes a little later though:

"We were delighted to have confirmation that the legacy aspect of the Games was what it was promised at the time of the bid," he said.

"This legacy is very important and we really consider London will be a model for future host cities of the Games.

What? Are you serious?

A games that is already predicting an increased budget of £9.3bn, has an aquatics centre that saw it's budget double overnight and a games policed by a force that doesn't have enough qualified officers, all of which before a brick has been laid is a 'good model' for future games?

It all comes from the IOC visit to London to check up on how the preparation is going. Given that the IOC, as an organisation, is a law unto itself, my only expectation is that this turned into a lunchtime back-patting session, just dragged out over three days.

Nevertheless, Ken Livingstone can't help but take this opportunity to have a dig at the doubters following these baffling comments:

Mr Livingstone guaranteed the 2012 Olympics would be the "most successful since Barcelona in 1992 in terms of regeneration and legacy".

"As the next three Olympic Games follow London, we will still be getting the legacy benefits in terms of housing and employment," he said.

He added that London would be able to meet all its Olympics targets and would "stage the greatest Games ever".

"It is time for the pessimists and purveyors of doom to start looking at the facts as laid out today and join the rest of us in backing London," he said.

As for the 'most successful legacy since Barcelona', he's probably right. Just as Barcelona turfed more than 50,000 gypsies from Montjuic Hill back in 1992, London will leave a legacy of local residential areas being bulldozed to make way for luxury apartments, leaving behind increased house prices and the dismantling of a community to be replaced by a wealthy clique.

But we should start looking at the facts? I am looking at the facts Mr Livingstone. The facts are that in 2002, the DCMS published the 'Game Plan' report which claimed that "hosting events is not an effective, value-for-money method of achieving ... a sustained increase in mass [sports] participation".
Another public think-tank found that "there is no guaranteed beneficial legacy from hosting an Olympic games ... and there is little evidence that past games have delivered benefits to those people and places most in need".
The facts also state that this Olympics is already over-budget by a considerable degree and that the London 2012 committee has produced an unpopular, epilepsy-inducing branding campaign.

Still, best to stick your head in the sand, assuming you haven't lost it yet.

It's going to be even worse than we thought

If ever further confirmation were needed that anything of importance in the hands of Londoners is doomed to failure, it came this week as the logo for the London 2012 Olympics was unveiled.



Already over budget, Seb Coe's Olympic kitty is a further £400,000 lighter after turning to a design agency to create the "iconic brand" that "takes our values to the world beyond our shores, acting both as an invitation and inspiration." Of course, because in the UK, we value odd bright pink shapes that don't spell out what they are supposed to spell.

If the logo wasn't pathetic enough in itself, it now emerges that the accompanying video to showcase the logo is guilty of causing epileptic fits. Someone, somewhere, forgot to check that the video could legally be broadcast in the first place. Words fail me.

And this is all before they have even laid a brick. The aquatics centre is already went twice over budget just six months after a bloke from the IOC in Singapore said the word "London" and the overall budget, as estimates stand today, is in excess of £9bn - that's before you factor in any further increases in the cost of steel and other raw materials.

London 2012, before it has even started, is destined to be a bigger disaster than the 1976 games - and it took the citizens of Montreal 31 years to repay that debt.

A disaster waiting to happen

You can never trust cockneys with anything, especially when it comes to relying on them to organise one of the biggest sporting events in the World.




Ever since Seb Coe bleated on about hosting the Olympics, getting youngsters into sport and the "legacy", the bills have been mounting up.

No sooner had the ink on the contract dried, the swimming pool had suddenly doubled in cost, then the organisers somehow forgot that they would have to pay VAT and now it's thought that the actual cost of hosting the games could reach a staggering £9bn.

So anyway, now the opposition have called for someone to be employed to watch the spending. Presumably they would just sit there watching numbers on a computer screen count up and up but anyway, it must be good work if you can get it.

Oh, but the "legacy", the "legacy" cries Lord Coe.
Well Sebastian, given the shocking state of our Amateur sports facilities, the government's London centric thinking and a complete lack of financial nous, the only "legacy" of the 2012 Olympics will be a crippling debt.

London is Rubbish

Way back in January, I told you that London was crap at doing anything. You name it and London would find a way to muck it up. It just wouldn't be a 'London project' if it wasn't late and grossly over-budget.


So today we read that the former president of the Olympic Committee is starting to sweat on London 2012. Sixteen months has passed and Juan Antonio Samaranch has reminded Ken Livingston and Coe (geddit!) that time is running out.

Work on the site of the Olympic stadium isn't due to start until 2008, a contractor has yet to sign on the dotted line and already it looks like the accountants have got their sums wrong.

First the Aquatics Centre plans were rejected after going twice over it's £75m budget, less than five months after London was awarded the Olympic contract and then it seems that the overall costs have risen from £3.5bn to £5bn. (Apparently someone didn't factor in that they'd have to pay VAT.)

Of course, this isn't the first thing that London has managed to make a mess of. Where the Portugese could build or refurbish ten stadiums in time for the Euro 2004 Championships, London couldn't even muster one ground to host the FA Cup Final, the Rugby League Cup Final and a few rock concerts.

Then there was the Millennium Dome. 12m people were expected, 6m people came. As for funding, an additional £204m of lottery funding was needed to keep it running and as of yet, it's still nothing more than an empty tent.
And lets not forget the British Library, five years late and £341m over it's £170m budget.

Maybe it's just a southern thing? The National Air Traffic Control Centre in Hampshire, The Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, The Channel Tunnel - those three projects combined equate to 7 years of delays and £5.3bn in extra costs.

And it looks like the Olympic organisers haven't learnt from the mistakes of those before them. The smart money is certainly on the 'revised' £5bn budget being increased again before the starting gun fires.

Enjoy London 2013 folks - if you're lucky!