Rio Paralympics sees ‘major budget cuts,’ low ticket sales
Published 12:15 pm Saturday, August 20, 2016
The Paralympics will go ahead in Rio next month but organizers say deep budget cuts mean one venue will close down, facilities will be dismantled and the workforce will be reduced.
Poor ticket sales have compounded existing financial challenges in recession-battered Brazil that have already hit operations at the Rio Olympics, which close Sunday.
Rio has less than three weeks to prepare for Paralympics, the pinnacle of the disability sport calendar where organizers hoped to build on progress made at the well-attended games in London four years ago. But Rio organizers have reported sales of just over 290,000 tickets for the Sept. 7-18 Paralympics.
“At this point, it is difficult for us to expect the full venues that we saw in Beijing or London, or expect to see in Tokyo in four years’ time,” International Paralympic Committee President Philip Craven said Friday.
The IPC said it has already sought to reduce costs over the last year and the new, deeper “major budget cuts” will affect every team and visitors to the games.
“Never before in the 56-year history of the Paralympic Games have we faced circumstances like this,” Craven said. “Since becoming aware of the full scale of the problem, we have focused all of our efforts on finding solutions to the problems.”