Chicago’s 2016 Summer Olympic bid got a boost Thursday when International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Jacques Rogge said he and the IOC were satisfied with the bid’s financial guarantees.
Chicago’s Mayor did not have the authority to sign the “Host City Agreement” which insures that the IOC does not face any financial fallout from the Games should there by any cost overruns, but last week Chicago City Council voted unanimously to underwrite the cost of the 2016 Games.
Rogge said during a teleconference, “we (the IOC) are totally satisfied by Mayor Daley signing the Host City Agreement”
Rogge reportedly said that previous difficulties with the United States Olympic Committee had been settled to each parties satisfaction. He said, “these entanglements will have no negative effect”.
He added, “regarding the distribution of revenues between the International Federations and the IOC with the USOC, their president Larry Probst and I have brokered a deal in Denver earlier this year. As for the USOC’s idea of setting up an Olympic TV network, we expressed some surprise at that, but then Larry Probst and I sat down in Berlin (during the athletics world championships in August) and he agreed to put a hold on that”.
