After a Budapest City Council meeting was held earlier this week, the Olympic vision for the city’s 2024 bid is becoming clearer. The list of proposed venues has been approved by the Council at its latest assembly, framing up the infrastructure and layout should Budapest be awarded the Olympic bid when the International Olympic Committee (IOC) makes its decision next year.
Included in the list of venues is the construction of a brand new, 60,000 capacity stadium to be used for track and field events, as well as the Opening and Closing Ceremonies. A velodrome and tennis complex are also slated to be in new construction plans, with the Olympic Park to be built on Csepel Island in the Danube River.
Also unveiled in the plans, which resulted in Council votes of 21 in favor, one opposed and 9 abstentions, are temporary facilities to be used for events such as volleyball and archery. Additional disciplines, including golf, equestrian and preliminaries of basketball and handball would be held outside of the city limits. The Ferenc Puskas Stadium, with construction already underway for its hosting of the 2020 European Championships, would host the soccer finals of the Olympic competition.
A 2015 feasibility study on the project estimated the development costs for the 2024 Olympics in Budapest to be in the ballpark of 1.074 trillion forints ($3.7 billion), with net costs after the sale of venues and other revenue calculated at 774 billion forints ($2.7 billion).
Voted down within the same Council session, was the proposal to hold a public referendum on Budapest’s 2024 bid. Proponents of a referendum, much like that held in Hamburg which resulted in a bid dissolution, say they are concerned about risk of corruption and an overall lack of transparency surrounding the bid process and organization.
The Council’s decision falls in line with the Hungarian Supreme Court’s blocking of the possible referendum last week. Had it passed, referendum supporters would have needed to collect 140,000 signatures in order for the public referendum to be held as early as spring.
The city of Budapest is competing against Los Angeles, Rome and Paris, none of whom have plans to hold referendums.
Is there a public referendum for Paris or LA? If not , why pick on Hungary ?
Hamburgers said no , but no one has wanted to go there since the Beatles.
what a shame, a public vote would have definitely rejected the idea, noone wants this corrupt government to build more stadiums, it’s just more money for their pockets
A city council is elected by people. 🙂
And the officials represent people. 🙂
If people are not happy they can change at the next election. 🙂
That’s how a democracy works. Even if as a country, there would be a lot of things to say about the state of democracy in Hungary. But that’s another debate.
I talked here about the city of Budapest.
elected officials