Michael Asbeck should have known: As Olympic coordinator in the city's sports department, he had led the creation of the Munich application concept for the past two years. “My work is done,” he said, sipping the espresso and enjoying the last moments of leisure before things got serious.
After Munich was selected on Saturday afternoon as the city with which the DOSB is now running for the International Olympic Committee (IOC) for the Olympic and Paralympic Summer Games in 2036, 2040 or 2044, Michael Asbeck and his team now have new work to do - and it won't be any less.
It is completely unclear when the IOC will award the games in question and whether Munich will even be awarded the contract for one of the years mentioned. What is certain, however, is that the city must at least prepare to receive a commitment in the foreseeable future. “We have to hurry up and basically start tomorrow,” said Munich Mayor Dominik Krause (Greens).
A sensible start would be to set up something like an organizing committee that would now develop the international Olympic campaign. “We first have to agree on how we will set up the structures,” says Munich sports director Florian Kraus, “and we have to talk about the form of cooperation and how everyone involved will be involved.” In addition to the city of Munich as a potential organizer, the DOSB is also involved as a link to the IOC, as well as the federal government, the Free State and possibly business representatives as donors.
The difficulty with the whole thing: Nobody knows exactly how the IOC plans to proceed. Last year, the new IOC President Kirsty Coventry announced a changed award procedure, with different, but not yet defined, stages: The DOSB is currently in so-called “continuous dialogue” with its Olympic application, in loose discussions, so to speak.
At the beginning of 2027, the IOC wants to start a “strategic dialogue” for the 2036 Games with a pre-selection of applicants, something like an in-depth dialogue. All other interested parties will then probably remain in loose discussions for the next available games. While we at least know that the 2036 games should be awarded in 2029 at the latest, everything is open for the period after that. “The IOC’s award procedure depends on how you have to set yourself up organizationally,” says Michael Asbeck: “We find it difficult to set up structures without knowing the exact tasks and requirements.”
Regardless of the IOC's considerations, there are various major projects that would have to be implemented for the Olympics: an Olympic village for more than 10,000 athletes and supervisors, for example, or new transport connections, the construction of temporary sports facilities. “We can’t wait until the IOC decides with the infrastructure measures – we have to get going now,” says mayor Krause. “If it's going to be the Games in 2036, we have to move quickly,” agrees Bavaria's Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU).
But in order to implement the projects quickly, legal changes are needed at all federal levels - from the federal government through the states to local authorities. Politicians are asked for a kind of Olympic law to remove bureaucratic hurdles and speed up construction. “People can hardly understand how long it all takes,” says Krause, recalling that before the 1972 Olympics, the first subway lines were accessible within just a few years. The planning and construction of the Olympic Stadium and the neighboring multi-purpose halls and swimming pools took less than five years.
And who is financing the whole thing? On Saturday on the podium in the Kursaal in Baden-Baden, Krause named the sum of ten billion euros that the Olympic and Paralympic Games in Munich would cost. Half would go towards the event itself, but would come back into the account through sponsorship and ticket income. The other five billion would have to be put into the infrastructure and would therefore benefit the general public beyond the games. “The question now is who will pay what share of the infrastructure measures,” said Krause: “We will also talk to the federal government about how it will participate.”
Prime Minister Söder confirmed Bavaria's financial support on Saturday. “The Free State of Bavaria will be able to manage the games together with the federal government,” he assured: “If in the end things fail because of money in the third largest economy in the world, that would be embarrassing.” Söder promised: “We will have solid financing.”
The mentioned five billion euros for the infrastructure are of course only the minimum that is needed, says Munich Olympic coordinator Asbeck: "But there are also projects that we want to push forward. We then have to balance between 'must-have' and 'nice-to-have'. And we have to discuss that together." Which desirable projects can then be implemented also depends on “what and to what extent the economy wants to contribute”.
Sports officer Kraus saw a challenge that was comparatively easy to overcome in the question of “how we deal with upcoming major sports events: they are already the flagship for international applications”. The first example is the Men's Handball World Cup, which is scheduled to take place in January, where the preliminary round will be held in the new multi-purpose hall of the Olympic Park.
A lot of work now awaits Munich's Olympic organizers, but Mayor Krause said on Saturday: "We are pleased that we can now really get started." When it comes to the Olympics, he can already feel “a crazy vibe in the city.”
