The Swiss government seems to be very interested in organizing the Olympic Winter Games in 2026.The Federal Council announced on Wednesday that Sion’s application was supported with eight million francs (approximately seven million euros).
If the 34,000 inhabitants of the canton of Valais were to be awarded the contract by the IOC in 2019, they would even contribute up to one billion francs to the budget.
Federal Councillor Guy Parmelin, responsible for sport, described the Winter Games as a “great opportunity for sport, business and society in Switzerland”.The makers of “Sion 2026” are currently expecting application costs totalling 25 million Swiss francs (approximately 21.5 million euros).For the implementation of the games, they provide for expenditures of around 1.98 billion Swiss francs (1.72 billion euros) and revenues of 1.15 billion Swiss francs (0.99 billion euros).
The Confederation intends to contribute a maximum of CHF 827 million (EUR 717 million) to these costs.In addition, investments would be made in the expansion of the Olympic-specific infrastructure and security.In total, this means that the Confederation has a shareholding of CHF 995 million (863 million euros) in the region.
However, the Federal Council noted that grants of this size could not be granted without public support.A referendum in Sion is planned for the time being – in many European candidate cities, such votes were most recently negative by the Bank, as was the case last Sunday in Innsbruck, Tyrol.In 2013, Graubünden’s candidacy for the 2022 Winter Games also failed due to a lack of popular support.