Saturday, 25 June 2011

An Olympic Confession

I feel slightly guilty to say this, but I'm one of the fortunate minority of applicants for Olympics tickets who actually succeeded in buying any. Not that I spent as much as I thought - I applied for £750 worth of tickets, but only managed to get £128 worth (including postage). Had I managed to acquire all the tickets I wanted, I would have about 24 for my wife and myself. As it is, I will be getting just four for two events - one for badminton and the other for tennis. Neither event is a final - they are both just qualifying rounds. Still, I'm not complaining. According to news reports, two thirds of applicants failed to get any tickets at all, including Boris Johnson (there is some justice, after all). I suppose the situation was not helped by the fact that so many tickets were bought up by big firms as freebies for staff and clients. One report said that two thirds of the seats to watch the 100 metres final were "corporate tickets". All of which raises the question: just who are these Olympics for ? After all, it is the UK taxpayer who is footing the bill. I accept that there were always going to be losers, but there must have been a better way of selling the tickets. I'm glad that I'll get to see live Olympic events, but, if the organisation of the games themselves is of the same quality as the selling of the tickets, I might not consider myself to be so fortunate after all.
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2 comments:

  1. Neville Grundy26 June 2011 at 15:03

    "Some £9.3bn of public sector funding, including cash from central government, London authorities and the National Lottery, will pay for the Olympics, to be hosted in east London in July and August 2012." BBC News, which went to say that the final cost is still uncertain.

    That's £9,300,000,000, which is considerably more than the amount the government wants to cut from public spending, so it is reasonable to say that cuts in public services, libraries, museums, benefits, jobs, pensions and increasing the retirement age are paying for this.

    Why our governments (both Labour and Tory) want such expensive, prestige events is beyond me. We squandered £160 million failing to get the football World Cup, whereas £140 million will be saved by removing mobility benefits from people in residential homes. That comparison highlights the real cost, and while it might be "nice" to have such events if you like sport, I believe the price is far too high.

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  2. Neville Grundy26 June 2011 at 17:35

    I'd just like to add I'm not criticising anyone who has applied for tickets. The Games are here now, and if you're interested, you might as well see them. At this stage, boycotting them would be pointless, as no one would notice and others would get your tickets. I'm just saying I think politicians got their priorities wrong in applying to host the Games in the first place.

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