London Olympic Shambles

As ever, when dealing with all matters Olympic, there is a massive row brewing over land, property and money.

This particular dispute centres on the ownership of land earmarked as the site of London's 2012 Olympic Games.

The London Development Agency (LDA) has issued a compulsory purchase order on the land designated for the site. However, London and Continental Railways (LCR) which owns some of the site says the LDA could "kill off" the development.

The LDA claim that the compulsory purchase order (CPO) has been issued to safeguard the land needed for its Olympic Park, as a result of the breakdown in negotiations between the LDA and LCR.

Needless to say the CPO has severely pissed off LCR, after all we are talking about a £4BN redevelopment scheme (which everyone wants a piece of).

In other news, it seems that the Olympics may face a medieval statutory bar; which prohibits sporting events to take place within a predefined area of Stratford.

Needless to say, if this ancient law is not removed, it will mean that the Olympic stadium etc cannot be built on the land designated for the Olympics.

Oops!

Botched Job?

Last year's Olympics in Athens were memorable for a number of issues:

- The massive overspend

- The frantic last minute rush to complete the buildings on time, using East European labour

It seems, much like Banquo's ghost, that these issues are destined to haunt Greece for the coming years.

The overspend has put the Greek economy into a parlous state. Now, it seems, that in the rush to complete the infrastructure, that the completion of certain buildings may have been botched.

A report by Germanischer Lloyd, a quality testing and certification group, on the steel and glass roof above the main Olympic stadium in Athens noted a number of faults in the web-like construction above the 70,000 seater stadium.

The stadium cost $288M, 36% over budget, and was completed only within a few weeks of the start of the games.

It seems that the roof needed some repair work.

The government said there was no reason for concern. Deputy Culture Minister Fani Palli-Petralia said:

"This report was completed in February 2005 and, based on this, what (minor repairs) needed to be done have been done. The roof is safe and there is no problem as far as its stability is concerned."

That's alright then, isn't it?

It's The Money Stupid

Never be in any doubt that the prime motivating force behind the Olympics is money, not sport.

This point is best illustrated by the news about the top sponsor of the forthcoming Winter Olympics in Torino Italy, MacDonalds.

MacDonalds will shortly roll out new global Olympic-Themed Television commercials.

These new global creative will feature its mascot Ronald McDonald vignettes and a spot celebrating Olympic dreams, McDonald's Olympic Champion.

Two official Olympic venue McDonald's restaurants, in the Torino Olympic Village and Main Press Centre, will also feature McCafe for the first time ever.

I trust that the irony is not lost on people?

Camelot CEO To Run Olympics

It is reported that Diane Thompson, the chief executive of Camelot the British lottery operator, has been approached to run Britain's Olympic Games in 2012.

Ms Thompson has been praised for her skills in managing Camelot, whose ticket sales are experiencing their longest period of growth since the national lottery was set up in 1994.

Advertisements for chief executive of the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games (Locog) have closed, and formal interviews are due to take place in December.

Camelot already has links with the Olympics. It has been given the job of raising £1.5BN, over the next seven years, from ticket sales towards the games.

This is an "interesting" use of lottery money, as the lottery was originally set up to raise money for the arts, heritage, health and education.

The highly commercialised Olympics is as far removed from these causes as one could possibly imagine.

I fail to see why lottery should be wasted in this way.