Games Monitor - People

a paralympic legacy

Steve Dowding — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 10:46:11 +0100

Peers are apparently keen to prevent appointment of fellow peer the Baroness Grey Thompson (of the £7500 a

Another fine Olympic Legacy - Justice for Bolt!

Julian Cheyne — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 02:42:31 +0100

Usain Bolt is to get £500,000 for appearing at this summer's Olympics Anniversary event. Up till now Bolt has been the victim of 'punitive' tax laws which have prevented him earning these absurd sums in the past, but now the law has been changed to rectify this injustice! His British rivals, the likes of Ennis and Farah, will have to make do with a miserable £100,000 or so.

when's the divorce?

Steve Dowding — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 09:51:07 +0000

The BBC describes the Stadium deal as an "unavoidable marriage". We're left to wonder exactly how much Newham paid for the wedding present?. Coe's concerns weren't for footie of course or he'd have done some research:

"Whisper it quietly, but football fans rarely want to watch football in an Olympic Stadium".

BOA constrictor Coe

Julian Cheyne — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 13:45:54 +0000

Revenge is a dish best served cold and companion of dishonour Coe is enjoying his repast. His arrival at the BOA has ‘coincided’ with the departures of Chairman Colin Moynihan, who left a year early, the former commercial director, Hugh Chambers, and the director of sport, Sir Clive Woodward, who noted the organisation was taking a ‘new direction’.

driiing driiing

Steve Dowding — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 11:22:34 +0000

February 14 - London 2012 communications director Jackie Brock-Doyle has been appointed as the new chief executive at The Good Relations Group, the public relations division of Chime, who recently purchased Sebastian Coe's company in a multi-million pound deal.

Deighton got 'inpirational' bonuses of £1.4m

Julian Cheyne — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 14:15:47 +0000

@MatthewBeard reports 'Lord deighton got total bonuses over six years of £1.4m, includes max windfall of £700k for "inspiring a generation". coe salary £535k' - of course he didn't inspire a generation, sport participation in the target generation of 16 to 25 year olds went down.

Watching the Olympics or sitting on the remote?

Julian Cheyne — Tue, 05 Feb 2013 01:43:56 +0000

Inflation is a feature of Olympic Games. Not just in cost. Sochi’s Organising Committee chairman, Dmitry Chernyshenko, predicts a 17% rise in tv viewing figures to a total of 3.4billion viewers for the 2014 Winter Olympics.

Honours even?

Julian Cheyne — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 17:47:16 +0000

The New Year’s Honours list revealed interesting definitions of what it is to be heroic. Sports men and women like Wiggins, Ennis and Ainslie were granted top honours and Lord Coe became a Companion of Honour, a special honour given for service of conspicuous national importance and limited to 65 people at any one time.

The Trouble with Stadiums - London and Rio

Julian Cheyne — Mon, 12 Nov 2012 00:54:26 +0000

More trouble with stadiums. Is this a record? For one Summer Games' stadium to remain out of action until after the next Olympics has ended? In London the LLDC has now said the Olympic stadium may not be used until August 2016. West Ham still seems to be the leading bidder in a race with Leyton Orient, Formula One and the UCFB College of Football Business with the NFL a wild card. In typical Olympics fashion Karren Brady has been talking up the jobs that will be created if West Ham win, claiming a thousand jobs will be created at the stadium. And, of course, in case we forget, where the Olympics are concerned property development is at the heart of the project and West Ham expect to make a killing on the redevelopment of their Green Street site

And then there's that budget again. The original cost of the stadium rose from £280m to £496m despite InsidetheGames reporting otherwise! Now a further £200 million may need to be spent on modifying the stadium for its future lessee on top of the £500 million already splashed out on its construction. In the meantime the LLDC will have to pay for the maintenance of the stadium while it lacks a tenant. As if that was not enough, the promise to continue to provide an athletics track has resurfaced as, if the stadium is not equipped with covered seating for one of these lessees, the deal with the IAAF for the Athletics World Championships in 2017 may have to be renegotiated. This could presage further trouble between the BOA and other parts of the Olympic team as S Coe, already a vice-president of the IAAF, has an ambition to head that body and retaining the stadium as an athletics venue is critical to that objective!

Hardly surprisingly after recent controversies the LLDC appears to have adopted a position of extreme caution in its planning. Dennis Hone, new Chief Executive of the LLDA, is reported as saying: “We need to make a decision on which of the four, if any, will provide the best long-term option and the best value for money. But it is important to remember that this is a 100-year lease we are talking about with the Stadium so we have to get it right.” 'If any'!

But London is not the only Olympic city to be experiencing stadium blues. Rio is wracked with controversy over the fate of the famous Maracanã stadium and sports complex. A public hearing into the privatisation of the stadium and complex was interrupted by a demonstration with hundreds expressing their disgust at the manoeuvrings of the authorities. Close on a billion dollars have been spent on programmes to upgrade the facilities. The football stadium has been closed for years as earlier programmes have been reversed. Now, despite promises from politicians like the present Mayor of Rio who said that “the privatization of the Maracanã is inconceivable”, privatisation is the preferred option following a well trodden path in mega events of public money being used to advance private interests. ‘Consultation’ takes the familiar form of presenting an agreed plan and ignoring objections. As Christopher Gaffney writes:

'The expenditure of public money on public works to be handed to private interests that involves the destruction of a top-performing public school, a century-old indigenous heritage site, and two Olympic quality training facilities in order to generate even more profit for Brazil’s richest man, is a perversity that boggles the imagination.'

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Auto Coe!

Julian Cheyne — Sun, 28 Oct 2012 00:17:06 +0100

Well what a coincidence! SebCo Ltd is about to publish his biography - the auto version.