IOC Vice President Cautions on Awarding Two Olympics

(ATR) John Coates tells Around the Rings he doesn’t think the IOC can award both the 2024 and 2028 Olympics this year.

His comments come after IOC president Thomas Bach said at the weekend that a vote for two Olympic host cities at the Session in Lima, Peru was up for "discussion".

At the Asian Winter Games in Sapporo, Tsunekazu Takeda and Ser Miang Ng were among IOC members who told ATR they would be open to the possibility of selecting more than one Olympic host at a time.

But Coates suggests that the IOC shifting the goalposts in the bid race could be fraught with legal complications. Budapest, Los Angeles and Paris are vying for the 2024 Olympics.

"You’d have to be very careful that you are not changing the conditions upon which the cities bid," Coates told ATR.

"They understood there would be one winner. If there is to be an opportunity to look at the second place getter that clearly has to be after the vote."

He added: "I would think legally it mustn’t be allowed to influence the vote in any way. I think that would be wrong."

Lessons can be learned from FIFA awarding the 2018 and 2022 World Cups to Russia and Qatar in December 2010.

The bidding process and decision-making was rife with corruption and vote trading. Former FIFA boss Sepp Blatter later admitted it had been a mistake to award two World Cups at the same time.

Coates, a close ally of Bach’s, said any plan to award two Olympics at the same time "would have to have the full blessing of the Session".

"But you just couldn’t go to the Session before the vote with such a proposal I don’t think," he added.

With Budapest 2024’s bid in turmoil over a lack of unified political support and a referendum looming, as reported Monday by ATR, Coates said there are other hoops to jump through before any IOC decision is made to award the 2028 Olympics soon after the 2024 Games.

The consent of the 2024 candidate cities and their governments would be needed.

"Everyone signed on the dotted line or said they’d sign a contract for these [2024] Games. You’d have to say ‘Are you interested? We will give you another contract’."

Coates said the IOC Session would need to agree to awarding the 2028 Games 11 years in advance of the event, noting that a change to the Olympic Charter may be necessary.

"I can assure you that there has been no brief to the legal affairs commission to look at this," Coates added.

Amid developments Monday which could put Budapest out of the 2024 bid race, Coates offered the Hungarian bid some encouraging comments.

He said that the underdog in the 2024 contest deserved praise for its bidding concept.

"I think it would be wrong for any IOC member just to discount them on some popularity fashion parade," he told ATR.

"Technically it is very good. It’s up to them to now get their message across."

Reported by Ed Hula and Mark Bisson

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