No to Rome 2020 is a fact!!!

"We can be heroes just for one day"

Today is a great day for Italy and Italians, our PM Mr. Monti has decided to not guarantee with public money the crazy project to host the Olympic Games in the 2020.

This is not a typical Italian complains about modernity or everything different from the existent, this time is different, I told you before, and I wasn’t alone, that this adventure would be a disaster in a period when we have no money to spend.

In Italy usually who speaks louder at the end would be right. Not this time.

Few people and few journalist has spent words to make Italians aware of the danger we could meet (corruption, wasting of money, destruction of archaeological and historical heritage, etc), but between them I’d like to mention two people who I deeply respect: Pietro Mennea (former gold medal at Moscow Olympics 1980) and Fabrizio Gatti (our best reporter).

From a rational point of view the whole decision and history couldn’t go in a different way. The Olympic project was ridiculous, they spoke about private money, they spoke about do not spend more than established, and they try to make the Olympics game seem a good bargain, when they are just the best way to waste our money, these are arguments that only in Italy could work.

But this time, for the first time, it does not work.

To stop another 10 billion euros wasting of money, in a country which has faced since the last summer cuts for over 60 billion euros, we needed to appoint a technical Government, while all the MPs supported the Olympic bid from all the main party. Luckily they failed.

Italian Sportspersons ask Government to support the Olympic Bid

The important thing is to participate.

Good evening dear followers,

it’s a today news that the most famous Italian sportsperson are pushing on Mr Monti, the Italian prime minister, to hurry up in make official the government support for the Rome Olympic bid to host the 2020 summer games.

In the past few days the President of the Italian Olympic committee did the same, as wells as other well-know personalities.

It could be a normal behaviour to push on the government to support the Olympic bid…it could be…but if you thought that the deadline for the government decision is the next 14th of February, or in other words just in 7 days. Days not years.

Why all these appeals to hurry the Government to support the Olympic bid?

If you thought that as the Rome Committee said that all the games would cost to the Italian State: zero euro (yes 0, nada, niente, niet, null), because the revenues and the private investors would repay most of the investment, and that Mr Monti is known to be a prominent economist, a person completely honest, why do you push so hard on it?

If the Olympic Games are a good deal he will sign for sure. If…

And if you thought that Mr Petrucci our chief of the Italian Olympic committee is in his last term of office and wants to leave a mark of his years as chief, and if you thought that the typical Italian sportsperson is almost illiterate and could sign something just with a “X” mark, you could understand because I’m so sceptical about the Olympic bid and especially its cost for the Italian people who are already paying for the mistakes of our past politicians.

No Rome 2020

The bid

Good evening dear readers,

my first post is about the Olympics Games which are planned in the summer of 2020, Rome the Italian capital has made a bid to host them.

In these days polls showed that a large majority of Italians are favourable to the Olympic bid, the official website of the organization claims that more than 70% of Italians agree with the organization. This is an important figure even if the people answering the questions were very few (around 1,500), but this is not so important for a very Italian reason, when you talk about public money in Italy, and an Olympic project is about public founds, you’re actually talking of the money of no-one.

Ourselves think about public money, not as the result of taxation or the result of the sacrifice of the nation, but as something that is unrelated with us, so in other words our money is not our money, but is their money. Who are They? Politicians, so since they waste money every day why don’t we use it to organize an Olympics Games?

I really think this is what the average Italian think about the money we need to host them. And this is my first reason to say NO to ROME 2020.

I have to confess that all our media are favourable to the Olympic bid, I’ve read nothing against them since now, which is amazing considering that our country is almost bankrupt and we need a lot of money to host the games. I’ve read about stop buying war’s planes and cut politicians expenses but not a word about Rome 2020. This is at least incoherent.

I’ll dedicate other post to the argument because I’m really keen on it, for now I just want to point out few things: the organizers said they will not use an emergency procedure to build the infrastructure we need; they talk about a cost for the community of 8.2 bilion of euros, and another 1.6 for a private company; they said everything will be clear; they said everything will be completed in time.

If you ever put a feet on the Italian soil you know those are the same old stories; I’ll put it short: for the first point when the government used emergency procedure (La Maddalena G8 event, L’Aquila earthquake, Rome 2009 swimming championship and a lot other circumstances) what we got was a huge increase in costs, corruption, inefficiency and usually a lot of people went to jail; when they didn’t use it what we got is the same (Highway Salerno-Reggio Calabria, High speed railway between Italy and France)…For the second argument the costs…never in history, and I repeat it: never in history an Italian infrastructure was built in time and more important it never cost what we expect. Never. Because we allow companies to present very cheap offers to build infrastructure with just a draft of the definitive plan, so after just a few months they start to ask for increase, saying that they found something of unexpected so the cost is now increased, what the state does? Pays. For the third argument: everything will be clear. C’mooooon we’re in Italy we have at least 3 operating mafias on our territory, and at least two or three MPs investigated by police because of their ties with them. So forget about clearness. About the last argument I just want to say that delays in an Italian project are not unusual they are the rule, and when you think to build something in a city with a heritage from the past huge in the underground, and you said that you could do it even in time, you are lying.

Just a brief sample of the argument, I’ll be back on it again. Just keep in mind, if it’s not clear, I’m not between the 70% of Italians who approve to host the Olympic games even if I really enjoy sports and the Olympic games especially.