The Financial Burden of Milan-Cortina 2026 Olympics: A Closer Look at the Rising Costs and Government Funding

For the bob track It’s the decisive day: today the board of directors meeting is scheduled Milan Cortina Foundation 2026 who will have to decide whether to give the green light to the work from 124 million euroswhich has become a symbol of delays and of inefficiencies in the race towards Winter Olympics. While in Rome Ccouncil of ministers puts a law decree on the agenda with “urgent provisions on governance and on the interventions within the Company’s competence Infrastructure Milan Cortina 2020-2026″.

Ma how much will it cost the entire event to the public coffers? It had to be economically sustainableinstead the bill has already risen to at least 3.6 billion euros. They had to be the “Autonomy Games“, however, most of the funds (2.8 billion) allocated them State. It’s the big binge of Milan-Cortina 2026that is, those that 5 years ago were passed off as “Olympics at no cost“. This was the compressed achieved at fine 2018 in the then yellow-green government between the Lega (favorable) and the M5s (prudent, not to say contrary). The former undersecretary had guaranteed it Giancarlo Giorgetti: “The government won’t do anything about it”. The then deputy prime minister had reiterated it Luigi Di Maio: “The State must not put us there one euro”.

Yes, because if the Olympic Masterplan provided for a balance between costs and revenues, the extra money needed for the surrounding works – the policy promised – would have to be spent only by the Regions, first and foremost Lombardy e Veneto. They claimed it almost with pride Luca Zaia That Attilio Fontana (but also Beppe Sala): “The Games of Autonomy”, they had called them. A bluff continued until the moment Milan-Cortina received the assignment of the 2026 Games. In Lausanne that June 24, 2019 teasing was for Stockholm (the defeated challenger) and as well Romathe city that had instead rejected the Olympics: “Raggi didn’t trust me, Sala, Zaia and Fontana did”, the CONI president said succinctly, Giovanni Malagò.

The day after Matteo Salvini he relaunched: “The Milan-Cortina Olympics will be cheaper of history“. Someone abroad had already sensed the trap: “You can trust it of Italy’s financial commitments?”, asked the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Attilio Fontana he swore: “One ‘only’ Olympic? No, ours will be the first Olympics to comply with the IOC charter, that is saving and economically sustainable”. However, the tacit agreement between the League and “its” Regions provided that sooner or later the money from Rome would arrive. From 2019 to today, year after year, the account has increased to out of proportionto the point of well exceeding 3 billion euros (but the target has arrived over four). Almost all of the money was provided by the State and at the start of the Games there are still two years to go.

THE APPLICATION: SPENT OF 343.6 MILLION – Il Olympic Masterplan included interventions on 15 race venues (with the construction of only two new locations and passing off the Cortina bobsleigh track as a simple one renovation). The total expenditure on competition venues and other investments (e.g. Olympic villages) was 343.6 million euros, of which 202.3 million in public funding. The budget of the Masterplan announced the Olympics at no cost: predicted revenues per one billion and 362 million euros eh costs they were equal, indeed with a slight management surplus of 37 miles euro. But works not related to competitions were not considered.

2019, ONE BILLION ALREADY ARRIVES – The first Olympic gift arrives with the 2020 budget law, approved on 27 December 2019. An amendment signed Lega allocate a billion of Euro by the State. For what? For them necessary works to “guarantee the sustainability of the Winter Olympics.” In practice, we are talking about roads, stations, airports, junctions, tunnels that must be built to ensure an accessible event. These are the works that the Regions involved – Lombardy, Veneto, Trentino-Alto Adige – according to the announcements, would have had to redo in own expenses. Instead, the three richest regions in Italy will be able to redo the look with state money.

2020, THE LIST OF WORKS – Then, with a decree from the MIT of 7 December 2020, the first is put in black and white long list of the infrastructures to be built for the “sustainability” of the 2026 Winter Games. They are divided into works essential, connected e of context. Attachment 3 lists all the works “essential to make existing infrastructure efficient and appropriate”: starting from the southern ring road of Sondrio to the variant of Longarone. The bill foreseen for the State is exactly a billion, the one allocated for maneuver. But then there are also the related and contextual works: funding has already been provided for 214.2 millionbut the funds aren’t there yet.

2021, MORE HELP – Tranche after tranche, i money allocated by State they begin to rise. First another additional 175 million, then the 2022 budget law, approved on 30 December 2021, comes to the aid of the Olympics. Well 324 million euros which, we read, “integrate the resources allocated to essential works“: the following July 13th, in a control room at MIT, an agreement was reached on the scheme distribution between the Regions of this additional slice of public money. In August 2022 in aid decree bis another allocation appears others 400 million euros. But in the meantime the big binge about the Games.

2022, IT RISES TO 3.3 BILLION – The list of works, in fact, swells in the maggio 2022 with the intervention plan prepared by Luigi Valerio Sant’Andreaextraordinary government commissioner of Simian (Milan-Cortina infrastructure company). There are two categories of interventions: the “essential-non-deferrable” ones which are used to carry out the competitions, the “essential” ones which concern public works (roads, railways, bridges…) connected to the Games. The first are 28, for a cost of 335 million euros. The “essential” works are 61for a cost of 2.97 billion. Without the former, the races cannot be held. The second category collects the most diverse requests (even far from the Olympic venues) of the administrations interested in Milan-Cortina. The total reaches a first astronomical figure of 3.3 billion euros.

SEPTEMBER 2022, 932 MILLION MISSING – Only a few months pass and the Prime Ministerial Decree of September 26, 2022 brings a surprise. Others are missing 932 million, or a sum that “requires further financial needs to be recovered”. Previous lists are tweaked slightly, with the total moving to 3.27 billion euros. The Prime Ministerial Decree explains that they are not enough to fulfill everything dream book of public administrators, hungry for works. Almost another billion euros will be needed, which would raise the total bill above i 4 billion. Not bad for a zero-cost Olympics.

2023, THE ACCOUNT INFLATES AGAIN – The numbers continue to dance in 2023. The commissioner of Simian in April prepare a new updated list: le indifferent works they became 37the essential ones 65. The overall expenditure is 3.16 billion financed and 294 million to be found. We have to wait September 2023: il decree with which the government begins to materialize the expense (already allocated) of others 400 million euros. The totalizer stops at 3.19 billion of financial coverage, to which must be added another 413 million to be found. The bill then comes to approx 3.6 billion euros, or 150 million more than in the spring. The list of works remains almost identical (in total 110 interventions), but it is not easy to read the communicating vessels of money. For example, a Baselga di Pinè An expense of 50 million euros was expected for the skating facility, but it will be built in Fair of Milano (with a contribution from the Ente Fiera), yet the people of Trentino will be given compensation of around 20 million, while the surplus is used in other interventions. Certainly, for the financed works, it is State almost all the costs are covered: 2.8 billion euros. The rest is divided by Regions, provinces, Municipalities and (on paper) some private individuals. A mountain of money for the Snow Olympics, a cake that gets lost in a thousand, inscrutable streams. On the summit a question: how long the final balance will stop?