In the first three months of the year, intense work has been done on the strategic actions to be implemented: to date, the budget for the next Italian Winter Games does not differ from what was presented in the candidacy dossier in 2019.
Meeting this afternoon in Milan, at Torre Allianz, the Organising Committee’s headquarters, the Fondazione Milano Cortina 2026 Board of Directors unanimously confirmed the Lifetime Budget to 2026.
The Fondazione Milano Cortina 2026 has acted in the last three months to identify the strategic actions to be implemented with the aim of maintaining what was budgeted at the time of the candidacy in 2019. Despite the impact of the pandemic crisis and the subsequent increase in large-scale costs, burdened by the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, the budget of the next Italian Winter Games, to date, does not differ from that assumed in the candidacy dossier, at around €1.5 billion.
The maintenance of this result will only be possible through careful and constant work to improve the efficiency of the organisation in agreement with all stakeholders and with the support of IOC and IPC. In the coming months, therefore, the review and analysis of all the operational steps that the Foundation will have to face and the levels of service to be provided will be intensified.
Identified lines of action for the next three years
Today's work led to the identification of guidelines for action over the next three years, focusing on optimisation as a permanent priority between now and 2026, in line with the Olympic Agenda 2020+5, the New Norm and the recommendations of the IOC Coordinating Commission after Tokyo 2020.
The President of the Organising Committee, Giovanni Malagò, declared: "We have entered the operational planning phase. The approval of the Lifetime Budget 2026 is good news. The Milan Cortina 2026 bid, despite being a candidacy that will use more than 90% of existing or temporary plants, requires rapid intervention and the work of the Board of Directors is – as always – truly indispensable".
"Thanks to everyone's commitment and ongoing dialogue with stakeholders," underlined the Foundation's CEO, Andrea Varnier, on the sidelines of the Board of Directors, "we have launched a strategic analysis of the Lifetime Budget and its optimisation. Despite the macroeconomic context in which we operate and of which we are aware, today is a first step that gives us energy to project ourselves forward focused on the ambitious work that lies ahead".