Berlin olimpiát akar – de a város még nem döntött
Patrik Stollarz/GETTY IMAGES - The Olympic rings at Berlin's Olympic stadium.
The German capital is moving forward with its plan to host the Games come 2036, 2040 or 2044 even as scrutiny of its candidacy's viability intensifies with the backing of commissioner Kaweh Niroomand and sports economist Stefan Chatrath's analysis.
The Olympic bid has once again found its way onto Berlin's agenda and, with it, a debate that is no longer confined to sport, but extends to urban planning, the economy and the relationship between institutions and citizens. In an opinion piece published last week in Welt, Niroomand placed the city on the international stage by arguing that "Berlin has, as the country's largest metropolis, structural advantages, worldwide reputation and political symbolic power", an idea that runs through his entire case.
The official in charge of the bid built his argument as a response to those who believe the current context rules out any candidacy, challenging that reading and warning that "Some conclude from this that the Olympics are currently impossible to communicate. But that argument falls short".
DOSB - Kaweh Niroomand, the Olympic commissioner for Berlin.
The shift in perspective is also reflected in the way the economic debate is framed. Rather than focusing solely on the scale of spending, the commissioner places it within a structured system which, as he explained in the German newspaper, is divided into three parts: the organising budget, the infrastructure budget with lasting impact, and the budget for public services such as security and healthcare. Within that framework, organisational costs, estimated at around €5 billion, could be offset by revenue, as the official underlined by recalling that "the Summer Games in Paris 2024 recorded a surplus in this area."
Niroomand placed the core of his argument in the transformative effect of those investments and insisted that "the Olympics are not a substitute for structural policy. However, they can bundle priorities, accelerate processes and make investments possible", presenting the Games as a tool capable of concentrating resources and speeding up decisions that would otherwise move ahead more slowly.
The commissioner also argued that even measures which on their own would be insufficient take on a different meaning. "For example, the Olympic Village could create around 2,500 permanently usable homes. That does not solve the currently estimated shortfall of 100,000 homes, but it does provide an impetus - and mobilises funds that would hardly be available from the regular budget," he noted.
Niroomand referred to Paris 2024 as a point of reference for a more restrained model focused on re-use and stressed that "Around 95 per cent of the competition venues were temporary or already existed"; an approach that avoided major projects and left a tangible urban legacy in transport, facilities and neighbourhood development.
Beyond the numbers and urban planning, Niroomand took the debate onto a less tangible but equally decisive plane, where he located the cohesive potential of the Games by stressing that "social cohesion lives (also) through shared narratives, collective moments and identity-forming experiences."
Chatrath's analysis offered a more cautious reading. In an interview by local outlet Rbb24, the economist said that processes of this kind usually generate opposing positions and recalled that "at the very least, there is always a discussion", alluding to the familiar dynamic of support and opposition that accompanies Olympic bids.
The analyst argued that Berlin meets the necessary technical conditions and described it as "a sporting city with broad experience of major international sporting events", highlighting its experience in hosting international competitions, the availability of infrastructure and its logistical capacity. However, he also shifted attention to the social factor, and he said that the awarding of the Games depends on "feasibility, legacy use and social acceptance", with the latter potentially the most open question in the German capital's case.
From there, Chatrath focused on dynamics that have already weighed on other bids and which, in his view, can also be seen in Berlin, pointing to the existence of 'a trust deficit' towards institutions, compounded by 'a fear of costs'; factors which, as he explained, have also been present in other failed processes.
Julian Finney/GETTY IMAGES - General view outside the Berlin Olympic Stadium.
That fear is fuelled by the city's economic context. Chatrath warned that "there is a high degree of sensitivity around the issue of costs", in an environment marked by the rising cost of living and pressure on the housing market, factors that amplify any misgivings about new public investment.
The discussion is not limited to the what, but also the how, and the senate's decision to rule out a referendum introduces another angle to the debate, which the economist endorsed by stating that "I think it is right not to hold a referendum for the Olympics. Quite simply for reasons of cost. In the other regions, referendums involve costs amounting to several million euros. But in the end only one city can win. So a great deal of money is being spent here without any real benefit."
Chatrath himself suggested that the debate remains at an early stage and noted that the project "is still far from being an issue across the whole city", a distance he partly explained by the still distant horizon of the Games, which for now keeps the discussion in a more latent than decisive phase.
Between institutional momentum and the doubts running through society, Berlin's Olympic bid is emerging as a process still under construction, one in which the balance between ambition and caution will be key to the trajectory of the proposal, in a city that, beyond international competition, seems to be confronting a debate about its own model for the future.