Rio Paralympics Race to Assemble Financing in Days Before Games
With the Rio 2016 Paralympics less than a week away, funding for the Games is still being pieced together after local organizers urged for a taxpayer bailout to plug what they claim are last-minute holes in the budget.
A little background (emphasis added),
Rio’s Olympics (Aug. 5-21) and Paralympics (Sept. 7-18) were supposed to be funded privately by the local Rio 2016 organizing committee through sponsorships, ticket sales and licensing deals. The committee’s website lists its budget as 7.4 billion reais ($2.28 billion), and as recently as late July the committee said its finances were fine.
But in early August, a cabinet official for Brazil’s President Michel Temer revealed to reporters that the local committee was facing a budget shortfall and was seeking urgent financial assistance. The federal government ultimately guaranteed 100 million reais in the form of sponsorship deals with state companies, while the city of Rio has offered 150 million reais.
A Rio judge initially blocked the taxpayer-funded bailout, ruling the privately run Rio 2016 would first have to open its books. But that decision was overturned on appeal, frustrating local prosecutors who had argued the committee should have to provide a full accounting of its revenue and expenses before being granted public funds.
You’d think?
