City offically drops application to host Games after mayor says it would be irresponsible to take on cost of event

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

The Italian National Olympic Committee has suspended Rome’s bid for the 2024 Games, though it has left open the possibility for a revival of the candidacy if there is a change in the city’s government.

The committee’s president, Giovanni Malagò, said he wrote a letter to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) on Tuesday to “interrupt the candidacy”.

The move follows a vote by Rome’s city council last month to withdraw support of the bid on the recommendation of its mayor, Virginia Raggi. The city’s withdrawal would leave Los Angeles, Paris, and Budapest in the running for the Games. The IOC will select the host city in September 2017.

It would also mark the second time in four years that a Rome bid has been withdrawn or interrupted. In 2012, the then prime minister, Mario Monti, scrapped the city’s bid for the 2020 Olympics because of financial concerns.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Rome’s mayor Virginia Raggi. Photograph: Giuseppe Lami/EPA

Raggi, who represents the anti-establishment Five Star Movement, said taking on the cost of an Olympic bid was “irresponsible” for a city struggling to emerge from years of corruption and poor public services.

Though Raggi wrote a letter to the IOC last month, IOC rules state that only the national Olympic committee can withdraw a candidacy. “Anybody can write to the IOC, but the only letter that counts is the one from the president of the Olympic committee,” Malagò said.

Since being elected in June as Rome’s first female mayor, Raggi has had a difficult time in office. Her administration was thrown into chaos after she dismissed the cabinet chief and four other officials resigned.

Malagò likened Rome’s situation to Vancouver’s withdrawal six months before the 1980 Winter Games were awarded to Lake Placid in 1976. The Canadian city had to wait 30 years to host the 2010 Winter Games.

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“While it’s true that Canada had two Games in the intervening years – Montréal (1976) and Calgary (1988) – I think Vancouver paid a big price for that decision,” Malagò said. “Rome and Italy find themselves in a similar situation today.”

In an attempt to regain the trust of the IOC, Malagò said he was offering Milan as host of the IOC session in 2019. “This is the first step of Italy’s rehabilitation after this unacceptable interruption,” he said. “The other evening I had a chance to discuss this possibility with the IOC president Thomas Bach and IOC general director Christophe De Kepper and there is ample support for this idea. This is a way to turn the page and move on.”

The interruption of the bid is another signal that the IOC is failing to convince cities that hosting the Games is a boon and not a financial burden.

A city government panel in Tokyo warned last month that the cost of the 2020 Olympics could exceed $30bn (£24bn), more than four times initial estimates.

Voters in Hamburg rejected the German city’s 2024 bid in a referendum, and Boston dropped out last year due to a lack of public and political support and was replaced as the US candidate by Los Angeles.

Four cities withdrew during the bidding for the 2022 Winter Games, leaving only two candidates in the field. Beijing, hardly known as a winter sports destination, defeated Almaty in Kazakhstan.