Reuters reports that Japan Olympic Committee (JOC) Vice President Tomiaki Fukuda wants to invite the country’s new Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama to attend next month’s International Olympic Committee (IOC) vote on the 2016 host city being held in Copenhagen next month.
Tokyo is bidding for the 2016 Summer Games along with Chicago, Madrid and Rio de Janeiro.
Fukuda told the Sankei Sports newspaper, “the Japanese sports world should collectively ask him to come. We need the new administration to incorporate our ‘Gold Plan’ for long term strengthening of Japan’s sports policies”.
Fukuda said Japan lagged behind other countries in terms of government commitment to sport but hoped the newly elected Democratic Party of Japan could buck the thread.
He said, “there is no doubt Japan compares unfavourably as far as budget and policy-making on sport are concerned. It’s not as if we have no channels of communications with them”.
