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This is such a painful situation for Japan. When I visited a couple a years ago the preparations were still going full force. They were so proud and looking for

This is such a painful situation for Japan. When I visited a couple a years ago the preparations were still going full force. They were so proud and looking forward to hosting it. Really think they are between a rock and a hard place with any decision. This together with all the sub-human conditions the workers in Qatar for the football world championship make it seem like organising events like this not something I would feel comfortable with hosting in my own country. It seems like it's a combination of hot potato and ego projects for specific people in governments. hell, couple of years ago my country "won" the rights to host eurovision song festival. I'm not against investing money in a broad set of cultural activities. But looking at the amount of money it costed to host it felt not something that was worth the tax payers money. Rather we just payed the artists then all the pseudo glamour surrounding it.

nikanj 6y ago
You hopefully paid to attract loads of event tourists, who bring money to the local economy
Blikkentrekker 6y ago
> This together with all the sub-human conditions the workers in Qatar for the football world championship Are they not simply de factō slaves? deprived of a right to leave at their choosing? That the world accepts this shows well the hypocrisy of man. — I suppose that for all of his theoretical abhorrence by slavery, a good football match weights heavier than that.
- toyg 6y ago
  I don't think "the world accepts it", but they are resigned to the fact that the moneyed interests powering these events are unstoppable. Which may or may not be true. Some of the opposition is even tactically waiting for the best time to make a stand - which might well be when the country is most exposed. See for example how the Yemeni Houti rebels tried to hit a Formula E event in Saudi Arabia with missiles. The worst thing, imho, is that Qatar is not even remotely the worst actor in the region. A World Cup in Saudi Arabia might well be inevitable over the next 20 years, and that will be even worse.
  - Blikkentrekker 6y ago
    The world could easily pressure Qatar into abolishing this, but it does not do so. We're speaking of countries that were willing to wage costly wars on flimsy evidence of w.m.d.'s, that are now not willing to pressure a nation over real evidence of slavery.
    - AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
      One of those countries refuses to enact a reasonable minimum wage to this day. That one in particular has no issue whatsoever with treating labor poorly.
    - michaelt 6y ago
      The US could indeed pressure Quatar over slavery, or Saudi Arabia over Khashoggi and human rights, or China over Uighur Muslims and emissions, or Russia over Ukraine and corruption, or Iran and North Korea over nuclear weapons, or Israel and all its neighbours to get a move on with the peace process, or the UK about the Irish border and laundering Russian money, or Mexico about border security and the drugs trade, or Myanmar about restoring democratic rule, or Japan about whaling or Turkey about treatment of their Kurdish minority. But pressuring them all at once, and hard enough to get results? That could leave the US in a lonely spot.
- matsemann 6y ago
  Grass root of Norwegian soccer is now calling for a boycott. Of course easy to say, as we probably won't qualify.. But i hope it could gain momentum.
zpeti 6y ago
Are their any actual legit studies that have shown if hosting an olympics is worth it for the overall economy or not? For example I think the olympics put Barcelona on the map for a lot of tourists and they’ve been reaping the rewards since, but it seems to me that’s more of an exception than the rule.
- kungito 6y ago
  I cannot imagine Barcelona needing something to put it on a map. Am not spanish
  - DocTomoe 6y ago
    Barcelona Olympics happened in 1992. Back then, foreign tourists tended to go to the Balearic Islands almost exclusively, Barcelona was kind of an inside tip for the young backpackers. Memories of an actually fascist government (which only disappeared some 15 years before) were still very present, and many foreigners thought the islands to be "safe tourist resorts", much like the tourist resorts of Cuba today (with few, mostly Boheme types ever leaving them during their stay). Not sure if Barcelona as a tourist destination was caused by the Olympics, but in 1991, it certainly was not a major destination for Europeans.
- DevX101 6y ago
  Hosting the Olympics costs somewhere between US$15-20 billion. If the goal is really to put a city 'on the map' you could spend less than 5% of that money on an extensive cultural/tourism marketing campaign and have more of an effect. I've yet to meet anyone who's chosen Sochi as a vacation destination.
  - Ceezy 6y ago
    They just need an other Olympic Game to remind people...
  - Retric 6y ago
    Winter Olympics locations rarely end up as tourist destinations because people take fewer international vacations to cold locations. Summer Olympics have a better shot, and the stadiums can more often be useful long term. But, it’s still low odds of success. The best bet seems to be a lesser known location which can use most of the infrastructure and has some non Olympics tourist destinations. Which isn’t a huge list, but there have been a few.
Mauricebranagh 6y ago
Well possibly such events should be not be awarded to countries with poor worker protection and H&S rule? do you think your country falls into this group. Also you know that Ireland deliberately wanted to lose Eurovision at one point.
sandworm101 6y ago
>> make it seem like organising events like this not something I would feel comfortable with hosting in my own country. Vancouver Olympics 2010. No, it did not make a profit, and there was a fiasco involving how the athletes village was converted into condos, but the city did not go crazy over preparations. Most of the venues were already there. Whistler was already a winter sports mecca. Vancouver didn't need to build new airports or erect new mountains. Things like highway improvements and sports facilities were not left to rot after the event. They are all still there being used today. And it was canada. Canada knows how to do winter stuff. I think it was the first olymics where the ice doctors didn't hide the fact that every winter olymics has a Canadian coin buried under center ice. The olympics isn't something that a city does to turn a profit, but that doesn't mean it has to bankrupt itself either. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Winter_Olympics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Winter_Olympics
- dleslie 6y ago
  We badly needed the highway and transit improvements, too. Almost none of the new construction went to waste. There is/was a movement to make the winter olympics permanently fixed in a few northern cities, Vancouver being one of them, in order to prevent the wasteful fiascos that are witnessed from time to time. Obviously that was a non-starter. The enormous expenditure (and wealth transfer) of public funds is sort of the point. ;)
  - sandworm101 6y ago
    >> We badly needed the highway and transit improvements, too There is much debate about this, particularly in regards to the Sea to Sky highway improvements. The old highway wasn't great, it was rough in spots, but the improvements have had unwanted effects. Making the highway easier means more people are doing day trip to whistler from Vancouver. Rather than stay in whistler people are staying at cheaper hotels in Vancouver. That means less local revenue and increased highway traffic. And no effort was made to improve non-car traffic along the route. No rail improvements. No bus lanes. Nothing much other than making the existing 2/4-lane road straighter and faster.
elif 6y ago
I was in japan for the Rugby World Cup (late 2019) and i can say I am hugely relieved that Japan will not have to host olympic crowds. Westerners looked at the lack of public trashcans and decided it was not their responsibility and simply leave trash everywhere. They smoked in non-smoking hotels. They turned public transit from a library into a pub. They ignored all queueing procedures. I even heard a scottish man brag that he never flushed a toilet the entire time in japan because he was "afraid of it spraying him if he pushed the wrong button" I would imagine for most locals, they are extremely relieved to not have to put up with the same thing x 5

nikanj 6y ago

You hopefully paid to attract loads of event tourists, who bring money to the local economy

Blikkentrekker 6y ago

> This together with all the sub-human conditions the workers in Qatar for the football world championship Are they not simply de factō slaves? deprived of a right to leave at their choosing? That the world accepts this shows well the hypocrisy of man. — I suppose that for all of his theoretical abhorrence by slavery, a good football match weights heavier than that.

toyg 6y ago
I don't think "the world accepts it", but they are resigned to the fact that the moneyed interests powering these events are unstoppable. Which may or may not be true. Some of the opposition is even tactically waiting for the best time to make a stand - which might well be when the country is most exposed. See for example how the Yemeni Houti rebels tried to hit a Formula E event in Saudi Arabia with missiles. The worst thing, imho, is that Qatar is not even remotely the worst actor in the region. A World Cup in Saudi Arabia might well be inevitable over the next 20 years, and that will be even worse.
- Blikkentrekker 6y ago
  The world could easily pressure Qatar into abolishing this, but it does not do so. We're speaking of countries that were willing to wage costly wars on flimsy evidence of w.m.d.'s, that are now not willing to pressure a nation over real evidence of slavery.
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
    One of those countries refuses to enact a reasonable minimum wage to this day. That one in particular has no issue whatsoever with treating labor poorly.
  - michaelt 6y ago
    The US could indeed pressure Quatar over slavery, or Saudi Arabia over Khashoggi and human rights, or China over Uighur Muslims and emissions, or Russia over Ukraine and corruption, or Iran and North Korea over nuclear weapons, or Israel and all its neighbours to get a move on with the peace process, or the UK about the Irish border and laundering Russian money, or Mexico about border security and the drugs trade, or Myanmar about restoring democratic rule, or Japan about whaling or Turkey about treatment of their Kurdish minority. But pressuring them all at once, and hard enough to get results? That could leave the US in a lonely spot.
matsemann 6y ago
Grass root of Norwegian soccer is now calling for a boycott. Of course easy to say, as we probably won't qualify.. But i hope it could gain momentum.

zpeti 6y ago

Are their any actual legit studies that have shown if hosting an olympics is worth it for the overall economy or not? For example I think the olympics put Barcelona on the map for a lot of tourists and they’ve been reaping the rewards since, but it seems to me that’s more of an exception than the rule.

kungito 6y ago
I cannot imagine Barcelona needing something to put it on a map. Am not spanish
- DocTomoe 6y ago
  Barcelona Olympics happened in 1992. Back then, foreign tourists tended to go to the Balearic Islands almost exclusively, Barcelona was kind of an inside tip for the young backpackers. Memories of an actually fascist government (which only disappeared some 15 years before) were still very present, and many foreigners thought the islands to be "safe tourist resorts", much like the tourist resorts of Cuba today (with few, mostly Boheme types ever leaving them during their stay). Not sure if Barcelona as a tourist destination was caused by the Olympics, but in 1991, it certainly was not a major destination for Europeans.
DevX101 6y ago
Hosting the Olympics costs somewhere between US$15-20 billion. If the goal is really to put a city 'on the map' you could spend less than 5% of that money on an extensive cultural/tourism marketing campaign and have more of an effect. I've yet to meet anyone who's chosen Sochi as a vacation destination.
- Ceezy 6y ago
  They just need an other Olympic Game to remind people...
- Retric 6y ago
  Winter Olympics locations rarely end up as tourist destinations because people take fewer international vacations to cold locations. Summer Olympics have a better shot, and the stadiums can more often be useful long term. But, it’s still low odds of success. The best bet seems to be a lesser known location which can use most of the infrastructure and has some non Olympics tourist destinations. Which isn’t a huge list, but there have been a few.

Mauricebranagh 6y ago

Well possibly such events should be not be awarded to countries with poor worker protection and H&S rule? do you think your country falls into this group. Also you know that Ireland deliberately wanted to lose Eurovision at one point.

sandworm101 6y ago

>> make it seem like organising events like this not something I would feel comfortable with hosting in my own country. Vancouver Olympics 2010. No, it did not make a profit, and there was a fiasco involving how the athletes village was converted into condos, but the city did not go crazy over preparations. Most of the venues were already there. Whistler was already a winter sports mecca. Vancouver didn't need to build new airports or erect new mountains. Things like highway improvements and sports facilities were not left to rot after the event. They are all still there being used today. And it was canada. Canada knows how to do winter stuff. I think it was the first olymics where the ice doctors didn't hide the fact that every winter olymics has a Canadian coin buried under center ice. The olympics isn't something that a city does to turn a profit, but that doesn't mean it has to bankrupt itself either. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Winter_Olympics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Winter_Olympics

dleslie 6y ago
We badly needed the highway and transit improvements, too. Almost none of the new construction went to waste. There is/was a movement to make the winter olympics permanently fixed in a few northern cities, Vancouver being one of them, in order to prevent the wasteful fiascos that are witnessed from time to time. Obviously that was a non-starter. The enormous expenditure (and wealth transfer) of public funds is sort of the point. ;)
- sandworm101 6y ago
  >> We badly needed the highway and transit improvements, too There is much debate about this, particularly in regards to the Sea to Sky highway improvements. The old highway wasn't great, it was rough in spots, but the improvements have had unwanted effects. Making the highway easier means more people are doing day trip to whistler from Vancouver. Rather than stay in whistler people are staying at cheaper hotels in Vancouver. That means less local revenue and increased highway traffic. And no effort was made to improve non-car traffic along the route. No rail improvements. No bus lanes. Nothing much other than making the existing 2/4-lane road straighter and faster.

elif 6y ago

I was in japan for the Rugby World Cup (late 2019) and i can say I am hugely relieved that Japan will not have to host olympic crowds. Westerners looked at the lack of public trashcans and decided it was not their responsibility and simply leave trash everywhere. They smoked in non-smoking hotels. They turned public transit from a library into a pub. They ignored all queueing procedures. I even heard a scottish man brag that he never flushed a toilet the entire time in japan because he was "afraid of it spraying him if he pushed the wrong button" I would imagine for most locals, they are extremely relieved to not have to put up with the same thing x 5