The final cost of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games was 20% higher than the official amount announced in the latest version of the organizing committee’s budget, according to a report released today by the Japan Board of Auditors.

Tokyo 2020 represented an expense of 1.7 trillion yen (12,146 million euros), according to the estimate of this body of a state nature and independent of the Government and the Parliament of Japan, an amount that contrasts with 1.42 trillion yen ( 10,145 million euros) announced by the organization of the Games in the Japanese capital.

The gap of about 280,000 million yen (2,000 million euros) is due to costs directly related to the Games and assumed by the central government that were not included in the final budget presented by the organizing committee last June.

The organizing body of the Olympic Games covered 640,000 million yen (4,572 million euros) of the total budget with contributions from sponsors and the International Olympic Committee, among other entities, while the Tokyo Metropolitan Government contributed 597,000 million yen (4,264 million euros), and the central executive, 187,000 million yen (1,336 million euros).

The Board of Auditors has concluded that the central Executive did not include in the official accounts the costs derived from the construction of training facilities for athletes, anti-doping measures and subsidies to local authorities for the renovation of sports venues.

The audit also revealed that the central government spent another 1.3 trillion yen (9,292 million euros) on 329 projects that indirectly contributed to the Games and did not count towards the budgets for the event, including border measures or improving weather forecasts.

If this figure and another 685,000 million yen (4,896 million euros) spent by the Government of Tokyo on similar measures were included, the total cost of the Games would skyrocket to about 3.6 trillion yen (25,736 million euros).

The Council of Auditors highlights in its report the need for the Government to offer the necessary information to clarify the total expenses for an international event of the magnitude of the Games.

The Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games were held in the summer of 2021 after being postponed from 2020 due to the pandemic, in an environment of discontent among Japanese citizens due to the increase in costs derived from that delay and the fact of carrying out an event sports in the middle of the global health crisis.

The organizers were forced to cut spending on many aspects of the Games, such as the size of the international delegations invited or temporary sports facilities, in order to avoid increasing costs further.

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