Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
OK, THE IDEA is stupid from the off. I get that.
The money alone means that Ireland could never, ever, ever, ever, ever host an Olympics.
But, what if?
Let’s just look at what the Games cost to host, will we?
The Rio Olympics cost the Brazilian government around €4.3 billion with another €1.4 billion provided for overruns in budgets. Obviously, the Irish government doesn’t just have that knocking around.
But, then again…
France says if it wins the right to host the 2024 Games, it will cost €6 billion.
What better a strategic investment than an Olympics? After hospitals, education, roads, housing and gardaí, obviously. Still with me?
Ok, so Ireland now has the cash available to put towards a bid. We’ve got politicians and civil servants on side.
How far away are we? Very.
The deal
The first thing we need to do is have a look at the contractual obligations host cities have to undertake. The contract for potential hosts of the 2024 Games is 273 pages long and previous contracts have been criticised for kowtowing to big businesses and ignoring certain human rights.
The contract is filled with stipulations a city must fulfill to host the Summer Games — including security, agreements not to sue the IOC, and an outline of the marketing agreements.
The document gives the broad brushstrokes of what any candidate city must do to host the Games. There are some details — for instance, the organising committee must agree to give the IOC 7.5% of cash revenue from contracts it signs as part of the marketing program — but there are no hard figures about how much money is spent on the massive construction projects that all Olympics eventually become.
Get through that and there’s actually having somewhere to put them on.
Venues
Now, even though this is the Dublin 2024 Olympics, we will have to host some events away from the capital. It not only gives a benefit to the rest of the country, it makes sense.
In 2008, Beijing held its sailing events in Qingdao because the Chinese capital is landlocked, which is a problem for sailors. So we’ll put surfing in Clare or Sligo.
The Rio Olympics are being held in 18 existing, nine completely new and seven temporary venues. Many of these are built in clusters, for ease of transport and construction. We don’t want athletes milling all over town.
That means while we could use the 3Arena for say judo and wrestling, we would need to construct two 10,000+ capacity venues for basketball, fencing and taekwondo.
Brazil built their three arenas for around €550 million and it includes the press, broadcast and logistics centres. Because we’re using the 3Arena, we could probably get it done for €500 million. Rio also has a facility for the modern pentathlon fencing and women’s basketball. We can use the RDS Simmonscourt for those.
Their handball arena cost €35 million, the tennis centre €52 million and the velodrome €37 million. Rio purpose-built a €20 million golf club for the event, but we’ll just use one of our championship-calibre courses and save a few quid. While Rio built a BMX track, London included it in its velodrome complex.
All of the equestrian events can be held in the RDS, which is getting a facelift anyway and hosts major international tournaments.
The National Aquatic Centre already has 2,500 seats and world-class facilities, a €10 million of an expansion could work, right? Another €6 million would add the diving and synchronised swimming facilities.
In preparation for the Pan American games in Toronto, the city built a 2,000-seat stadium for around €7 million. A bigger venue would run close to €16 million.
For canoeing, Australia paid around €4 million for their facility back in 2000.
Football can be spread between Croke Park (which will host the opening ceremony), the Aviva Stadium, Windsor Park in Belfast and Thomond Park, while rowing will require a new facility costing around €25 million. In the spirit of decentralising the events, why not put it in Cork?
A new €60 million centre would be needed for volleyball and a €50 million facility would be needed to host gymnastics.
Rio has Riocentro to host boxing, table tennis and badminton. We would have to drop around €60 million on Lár Átha Cliath.
Other venues would add up to about €50 million before we get to the big ones.
The London 2012 village cost around €1.5 billion, selling before the games for around €1.2 billion.
A new Olympic stadium almost bankrupted Montreal back in 1976 (the city just finished paying it off). The stadium in London cost €540 million but being used in Rio cost around €170 million. So it’s really a question of how much you have to spend. We have €6 billion to invest, but we want bang for our buck, so we’ll go for the median and say €350 million.
In total, without allowing for overruns, our venues are going to cost us at least €2.7 billion.
Logistics
Once we get by the spending of a ridiculous amount on sporting venues across the city that would be white elephants within days, how are we fixed?
Well, we suggested building all of those venues, but not where to do it. The national sporting campus near Blanchardstown has some space to build, but not a whole lot, so we’re going for a greenfield site in the north of the county.
That’s not far from the original Metro North plan, which was costed around €2.4 billion. With lines to other facilities and Luas/Dart integration, we’re going to call it around €3 billion.
Another issue is hotels. Dublin already needs at least another 5,500 rooms to meet demand. Rio, for its part, has over 30,000 rooms. Investment would be needed to encourage the building required.
And so our pot is dwindling. Rio spent around €200 million on security and staffing and we haven’t even touched marketing, ceremonies or upgrading medical facilities.
So, to sum up: no, you will not live to see the day that Dublin hosts the Olympic Games. I’m sure you had your hopes up and all.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
Think of the amount of money to be made from ticket touting alone
The consultants hired to choose which consultants would be the best at picking consultants would be delighted.
Olympic should be every 4 years in Greece-as it was. Not bankrupting poor countries leaving empty stadiums after while people suffer.
Brilliant, every time the Greeks near getting their economy back on track they are crippled by another Olympics
Ya it could cause a country major money problems. Greece would suffer like most other countries. But what if each country had a chance to hold the Olympics? And each country had to pay an equal amount to enter ie share to cost. Then each country could aford to hold the Olympics. Also make sure when an Olympic city is but it can be used again not just left to fall apart
Exactly Gregory , build a purpose built facility in Greece were all the Olympic countries contribute to building them and the up keep too and have it there every 4 years instead of building white elephants around the world every 4 years
Croco: u missed my point. See Michael’s comnent….purpose built…
Mick, the world is full of empty stadiums after Olympics. Pure waste of resources.
Examples of abandoned stadiums…
A good piece by Julia Lynn Rubin where she poses the question, which Rio structures will join the list? Some excellent photos of abandoned Olympic sites; http://allday.com/post/666-the-abandoned-buildings-from-sochi-and-other-olympic-venues/
Hopefully we never do. Look at the trail of destruction it is leaving in its wake out in Brazil.
Ideally we would host a major European tournament, build 3 or 4 stadiums and then give them to league of Ireland teams. The biggest thing holding back LOI is the grounds in my opinion. Never gonna happen of course but sure look.
That’s the thing holding LoI clubs back? You’ve never been to a LoI match so …
Or the positively it brought to London! And sports around the UK before and after
Pat Hickey at the helm
we definitely need to make the tickets affordable
@alex – Hence PH is our only hope !
we would win the cost overrun competition
Not sure if we have the infrastructure but we defo have enough drug dealers
but are they world class..?
Brown envelopes, and lots of them
The corrupt IOC officials would be delighted to come here. The greatest safe haven for corrupt people in the world. In other countries, they might get arrested.
Transport system creaks under the pressure of a match in croker or lansdowne for one day – can you imagine it for 2 straight weeks? Plus they’d probably strike anyway because it’s ‘a change to their working conditions’
Silly sod should have worked for a bank. Only slighest of risk of getting ‘banged up’ here and even then, in his case, only years later and possibly posthumously. ‘Yez can’t get me I’m old and sick, no wait, actually, old and dead.’
Ireland couldn`t afford the Olympics huh??
Just grab Bertie Ahern, Turn him upside down and shake him,
Job sorted….
Well, there is enough drugs around to keep the vitality going, if they want to come here.
Why would you even bother.
Pat hickey and the likes would approve anyways, no chance of an arrest around here. As for a head shave, no chance.
Irish Blatter in prison, hats off to the Brazilian authorities well done.
My grandma could win gold if we pumped her up with drugs. We should have dual olympic events, one of those on drugs and the other for those who are clean.
Fun fact: apparently Dublin bid for the Games in 1936. Yes, that Olympics.
Do Cork next!
@Tweety
Very true,maybe we should consider a Munster Olympics because the cost to build anything around Dublin would be astronomical.One example,the Aviva stadium cost €410 million and the new Pairc Ui Chaoimh is costing €70 million.We have the new Events Centre to be built in Cork hopefully in the next year or two,Thomand Park in Limerick,INEC in Kerry,Tipperary could host the equestrian events,Clare the sailing,and Waterford the rest.All in,we would probably have change out of a billion.
Padraig, thanks for the laugh.
Great idea, let Munster host it and no taxpayers money from Dublin used to pay for it
Cork is an enormous net contributor to the Irish tax system
Great Idea, perhaps the rest of the country can take this stance for all the tax money going to infrastructure in Dublin that comes from the rest of the country, Primarily Munster.
The problem with hotel rooms is that Dublin wouldn’t need that many in the long run. But I reckon there’s an easy solution. Work with cruise companies to park up a few cruise ships for the time it’s on. They’re like floating hotels anyway. It brings in extra temporary rooms with no build cost.
I didn’t know the country I lived in was called Dublin, I thought it was called Ireland!!!
For anyone who is on the road for work at 6:00am every morning and is trilled to give half there salary to the social pot must be overjoyed by the constant flow of ideas and imaginative ways their hard earnings can be spent.
Ah Dublin Again.
Why dublin
Where is a Bertiebowl when you need one?
And does it have an eircode ?
At least we could blag our way out of a green swimming pool.
If we didn’t bail out Anglo Irish Bank we would have been had no problem.
Hat Pickey gettin the full banged up abroad treatment.. The greedy crook… Good enough for him..
Silly sod should have worked for a bank. Only slighest of risk of getting ‘banged up’ here and even then, in his case, only years later and possibly posthumously. ‘Yez can’t get me I’m old and sick, no wait, actually, old and dead.’
It is really not as ridiculous as it sounds the benefits to tourism would be immense!!. If we can pay €60 billion to banks then why not!!.
Our current bunch of politicians are way to wasteful with the country’s finances for Ireland to be able to afford hosting such a large event. That and there’d be a significant increase in illegal dodgy political dealings, as they’d all be jumping over themselves trying to make as much money out of it for themselves as they possibly could, regardless of laws of the land.
Who ya gonna call? PAT HICKEY!!!!!!
Is it possible to host the summer olympics in a country that doesn’t get a summer??
Perhaps the winter Olympics.
Why Dublin, the rest of the country is too far back in the 19th century, thats why!
Done deal would be run by Pat Hickey.Oh the shame
Never mind the events, just let us handle the ticketing and financial back-office. We offer low or no taxes, light regulations and, with the latest ‘tax inversion’ innovation, the ‘Irish’ Olympics don’t even have to take place here, they can be ‘sub-contracted’ to somewhere else. Anywhere with better weather, for instance. We can still watch on TV and Enda and Michael can attend and get rid of any excess tickets and stuff. ‘Anyone now for the last of the apples, pears and chocolate and 100 meter final tickets?’
Build it beside the bertie bowl oh wait …..
Hahaha can you imagine the cockup we woukd make. If the Spike is anything to go by we would never get it built in time . You can imagine all our fat cat politicians wetting themselves at the thought of all the reflected glory!
Another €bill set aside for bribes
Other than a miracle? A huge Mistake could cause it to happen. We have enough politicians, councillors, bankers etc bleeding the country dry.
No worries the Healy Reas could organise it
We’re useless at most sports so thus would be ridiculous to host.
We’re also broke for the next 30 years until we catch that can (special bailout bonds) we kicked down the road and somehow deal with it….
Ireland should bid, however, they should do it under new terms and break the nonsensical IOC mould. It is becoming apparent that the cost of the games is too high, that the facilities etc are often left as white elephants and that host cities are put under serious strain to cope with the demands of the games. What needs to happen is that a Country can bid, not just a City. Ireland 2024 is a feasible option. By spreading facilities throughout the country you give all areas an economic boost and disperse the costs associated with the games. Every region becomes part of the games so resentment towards the event diminishes and by choosing appropriate locations for events you can increase the post games benefits by giving disadvantaged areas etc access to top class facilities. What happens in the host cities is that many of the centers can be used for the same thing after the games but during the games they cannot so subsequently when the games are over one facility often becomes the preferred choice and the other stadiums are left un-used. By spreading the stadiums you can ensure all stadiums are used again. eg. top class facilities in cork, galway, limerick, dublin etc would all be used if spread properly. You can also make better use of existing facilities. It also gives smaller nations like Ireland which is about the size of L.A anyway a chance to host the event, and it would also open it up to pretty much the whole continent of Europe and several countries in asia and s.america which would be fantastic as we would no longer see the games bounce between the same 5 or 6 countries and following the games our standard of competitors will increase due to access to better facilities, again fantastic for the games as do we really want to see a US, China, Russia, GB top the medal table forever more? By doing the country option the games will benefit and become more appealing to smaller nations and it also gives countries a chance to showcase more of their country (Dublin is pretty city but lets be honest Ireland has more beautiful locations to offer) and thus boost tourism which is half the reason most cities bid for it anyway. So bid, yes we should but bid as Dublin no we should not.
1993 Gay Mitchell shook my hand and spoke to me about bringing the Olympics to Ireland… still laughing!
Bertie and his pals Gerry Beades, Paddy the Plasterer could do it. Bertie allowed them free reign on planning etc — a nod and a Brown envelope was all that was needed. Plus Pat The Lord Hickey.
And if caught touting,forget rio,you will get a seat in Leinster house.
Plenty of BROWN Envelopes by what I have seen from these Olympics?
Two miracles?
There enough drugs on streets of Dublin without inviting in the Olympic games
Go for it I say .also can’t wait for pat hickey episode of banged up abroad ..where he’ll get well and truly banged up .dya think they might get gay byrne to play him ?
Surely not in mafia fairyland.
Go for it I say .also can’t wait for the Pat Hickey episode of banged up abroad where I’m sure he’ll get well and truly banged up. Dya think they’ll get Gay Byrne to play him ?
A good few brown envelopes
first need some brilliant football players
Lets give a few hundred million to the rugby goys, hop on the bandwagon and wait till Argentina knock them.out again.
First Steps – Primary and secondary schools firstly need state of the art sporting facilities and PE should be encouraged.
How about 4 or 4 miracles and Oh yeah some one honest and not out for themselves….darn that goes that then!
have your say