A contribution of public money which should be equivalent to a balance in any account. This is how the decision of the public authorities to pay more than 60 million additional euros in subsidies to the Organizing Committee for the Olympic and Paralympic Games (Cojop) of Paris 2024 is presented.
Announced on Wednesday, June 26, this contribution – 33 million euros from the State, as much from the local authorities involved (City of Paris, Ile-de-France region, Greater Paris Metropolis) – firstly allows the Cojop budget to be rebalanced, which has seen its expenditure exceed what was planned in recent months.
This new financing also leads to the reconstitution of a precautionary reserve to cover residual risks: this has been increased to around thirty million euros.
Before this operation, the State’s contribution to the Cojop budget was 124.5 million euros, the City of Paris and the Ile-de-France region having each committed 15.6 million euros and the Metropolis of Greater Paris 15 million euros.
Cojop’s budget is now around 4.5 billion euros. It was initially, in 2018-2019 during the first steps, 3.8 billion euros.
For the outgoing executive, this should be the final revision of the Cojop budget, the objective being that it will avoid having to go back to the pot when it comes to closing the accounts of the organization of the Games.
Capacity to finance the Paralympic Games impaired
The State’s contribution was officially presented as support for financing the Paralympic Games, whose tickets are struggling to find an audience, and not for the Olympic Games (OG). This is due to the “mechanics” of financing these two events.
The organization of the Paralympic Games being structurally in deficit, it is for a large part the surpluses of the budget of the organization of the Olympic Games which must make it possible to maintain the balance between expenditure and revenue, with the State and communities supplementing this.
The problem is that, in the final stretch of preparation for the Olympic Games, the Cojop budget has drifted somewhat. Paris 2024 has faced additional costs, particularly on the various construction sites for setting up the competition venues.
The Organizing Committee had to absorb this additional expense, in particular by drawing on its contingency reserve. This hampered its ability to finance the Paralympic component. It is this loss of financing margins that the State and communities come to fill.
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