The French Sports Minister, on ticket prices for Paris 2024: “It’s the biggest sporting event on the planet, we don’t ask ourselves these questions when we go to a Madonna concert”

There are 470 days left until July 26, 2024. The exact day on which the Games of the XXXIII Olympiad will be launched in Paris with a ceremony in the Seine River area, about which little is known -as is always the case with the Olympic inaugurations- but of which images are expected to be saved in history. The French Minister of Sports, Amélie Oudéa Castéra, gave some more clues this Wednesday about what will happen that day: “There will be 100,000 paid places for the public in the stands planned on the docks, and in total several hundred thousand people will attend,” she said in an interview with France Info radio. The former tennis player added that to guarantee the safety of the public and that of the event “there will be security perimeters”, but that does not mean that “every person will be subject to controls”.

The minister also defended the price of tickets and packages for the next Olympic Games, after criticism for the high cost of some high-demand events: “The Olympic Games are every four years and ours are the usual prices. We don’t ask ourselves these questions when we pay to go see a Madonna show,” argued the official, who took office in May 2022.

Regarding the budgetary issue and the adjustments that were made to the original costs, Oudéa Castéra emphasized that everything will be ready for the Olympic Games and that the budget has not been out of control, although it was revised, mainly because of the impact of inflation. She emphasized that 96 percent of that budget will be covered by private revenues, that is, thanks to sponsoring companies, ticket sales and licenses. The minister reiterated that in global terms, public investments represent less than 25 percent of the money needed for the next Games.

As for the presence of Russian and Belarusian athletes in Paris 2024, she explained that it is the International Olympic Committee that has the last word, although she admitted that President Emmanuel Macron plans to rule on this issue during the next European summer. The minister did not want to anticipate Macron’s position, but she did slip that France supports Ukraine, but at the same time “without contradicting the principles of the UN”, in particular that of not discriminating on the basis of nationality. In any case, she also warned that athletes who have explicitly supported the Russian invasion of Ukraine “will have no place in the Olympic Games.”