Parigi 2024, le Olimpiadi della rivoluzione francese

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Olympics

Olympics, the Italian expedition cost 40 mln (but winning brings up to 50 mln a year)

The impact of medals on Coni's accounts between royalties, partnerships and sponsorships

by correspondent Marco Bellinazzo

4' min read

4' min read

For the expedition to the Paris Games, Coni has invested around 40 million. This is the overall cost of a machine that in this atypical three-year Olympic period - given the postponement to 2021 of the Tokyo edition - involves a thousand people including athletes, coaches and staff. A budget that includes a share of 13 million euro that Coni reserves for medal prizes and scholarships (from 16 thousand to 30 thousand) awarded annually to athletes, on the basis of their sporting achievements, to support them in their university careers and, more generally, in their extra-sports training.

But where does CONI get the resources to finance these activities and especially to maintain the training facilities (see article below) dedicated to top athletes?

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According to the Financial Law for 2019, the Olympic Committee receives a cheque of 45 million per year, which can be supplemented if the 32% tax levy on the sports sector is above the minimum level of 410 million. In relation to 2024, the CONI budget is in deficit by 7 million, but the government is expected to allocate additional funds to at least break even. Forecasts indicate an extra revenue for the current year that could exceed 100 million.

As Carlo Mornati, Secretary General of the Italian National Olympic Committee, explains to Sole 24 Ore, this appropriation is to be used both for the functioning of the Committee and its various articulations and for the financing of Olympic activities. "But these are underestimated funds, taking into account that we are talking about a sum before taxes that weigh on the three Olympic technical centres for about 10 million a year. Fortunately, CONI, which I would like to remind you is a public body, has succeeded over time in activating a whole series of its own revenue streams and putting the successes of the Azzurri and Azzurri women into income'.

At present, these lines guarantee annual revenues of around 50 million, deriving from various items, such as the royalties that the IOC recognises for the activations carried out by the CONI in synergy with the Olympic sponsors, the sums that the commercial partners pay to Milan-Cortina - which until 2026 has absorbed the commercial activity of the CONI, recognising to the latter a guaranteed annual minimum -, or the contributions that arrive at territorial level and the revenues generated by the preparation centres.

One of Coni's flagships is Casa Italia, which has become the real media factory of the Italy Team. It is a multimedia platform that allows, during the course of the Olympics, the meeting between athletes and sponsors, putting Coni in a position to exploit the secondary TV rights and its ott channels. But Casa Italia is also a network that, beyond the Olympic experience, has allowed to mature a technological know-how used, for example, to give visibility to events not fully covered by TV such as the Mediterranean Games.

It is also thanks to this productive commitment that Coni, chaired by Giovanni Malagò, is now able to support the growth of Italian sport and the national Olympic team.

A national team that, if it has been able to reap so many successes in recent seasons, is not necessarily so in the future. 'Italian sport,' emphasises Mornati, 'is a craft of excellence. We work in niches with a reduced human capital compared to other realities. We have very well-prepared technicians who look after talent from a very young age, in an almost sartorial manner. I am thinking of Molfetta with taekwondo or Jesi and Livorno for fencing. On the other hand, we are losing out on large numbers, on mass sports, because in Italy sport is no longer taken care of, and in part has never really been taken care of. And by sport I don't mean mere physical or motor activity, but the set of regulated disciplines. In the past, for example, football was played in oratories, which are almost no longer there. Therefore, I think that today it is essential that football and sports in general are present in schools. All children should practise one or more disciplines, as happens in Australia or looking closer to us, in the Balkans. From Slovenia to Croatia, children play sports at school, starting with team sports, as part of the curriculum. So it is no miracle that despite having a smaller population than Italy they are competitive in so many disciplines'.

Then there is an underestimated problem related to ageing. "In little more than 20 years, compared to when I was playing sport," concludes the Secretary General of CONI, a former rower, silver medallist in the four without at the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games, "more than four million young people in that age group in which one can potentially go and find new champions have disappeared. The results we are getting, already being one of the oldest countries in the world, will sooner or later cease. This is not a cry of alarm, it is a certainty, if nothing is done to counter the problems that are appearing on the horizon'.

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