Following a series of tweets by Lia Hervey (Sky Sports News’ Olympics producer) regarding her attempts to extract information about the breakdown of Olympic tickets by sport and session, I was asked to write an article for ORGZine, the Open Rights Group‘s online magazine, on this particular issue. Below is a short extract, you can read the full article here.
The 2012 London Olympics is shaping up to be the largest sporting event ever held in this country. Not only will it be the largest, it is also likely to be the most expensive sporting event hosted in the UK. Current estimates place the overall public sector funding package for the Games at £9.298bn, a not insignificant sum of money.
Of course, the preparations for the London Olympics have not been without their critics. In an era of austerity and public spending cuts, the question is often asked “why should we spend vast sums of money on a sporting event?”. Indeed, when the rest of us are forced to tighten our belts, it appears to many a little unfair that the state is spending a significant sum of money on such an extravagance. With austerity as the backdrop, and a government committed to ushering in a “new era of transparency”, you would expect transparency to be at the heart of the planning process for the Olympics, primarily to provide reassurance about the nature of any public spending on the event…
Ian Clark
A qualified librarian and co-founder of a leading national library advocacy campaign, I have written articles for The Guardian and the Open Rights Group on a range of professional issues.
Follow Me:
Pingback: Request Initiative » Environmentalists push for boycott of Scottish salmon