Other website sections

»Sports Market Reports

»Sports Jobs

»Tenders

»Directory

»Conferences

Taxpayers will help foot the bill for a $325,000 investigation into whether Auckland has the infrastructure to host the Commonwealth Games in 2018.

The New Zealand Olympic Committee (NZOC) announced the assessment friday after the Government confirmed it would co-fund the investigation.

It is the first step towards bidding for the Games, but there are no guarantees a bid, which has to be with the Commonwealth Games Federation in May 2011, will eventually be presented.

The investigation will be done by Events Knowledge Service (EKS), a subsidiary company of the federation. The study will identify the strengths and weaknesses in the Auckland region's ability to host the Games.

"The group we are looking to employ for the study are experts. They have assessed the previous half-dozen or so Commonwealth Games countries," the secretary-general of the NZOC, Barry Maister, said.

"People say it's a lot of money for the investigation, but it will have benefits in other ways. It will give Auckland a sense of its capabilities to stage major events," he said.

EKS would look at all areas associated with being a Games host, including venues, security, transport and athletes' accommodation.

Maister said another critical aspect to consider was the sports New Zealand would have on the programme.

"There are 10 compulsory sports and another five we can choose."

A Christchurch group started the NZOC thinking about a Games bid.

The group, led by Bruce Ullrich, a vice-chairman of the organising committee when the Commonwealth Games were held in Christchurch in 1974, wanted to bring them back to Christchurch, but last year the Christchurch City Council decided that a bid would be beyond its means.

"But that galvanised us to look at it," Maister said.

The investigation and report would be completed in a matter of weeks, he said.

"We hope to get these guys here in August. They do seven or eight days of investigation. They write a report in two or three weeks, and then we have until January next year to decide whether to go any further," Maister said.

"We may think it's too hard and walk away from it. If it proves beyond us, it could be helpful to help New Zealand develop a major events strategy. It might be single sports championships we look at."

Auckland held the Games when they were last in New Zealand in 1990, but the size of the Games has virtually doubled since then and smaller cities are finding the cost of making a bid too high.

The cost of hosting the Games has burgeoned since teams sports were introduced at the 1998 Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur. The number of competitors has soared from 1900 to 4500.

Funding for the investigation will be provided by Sport and Recreation New Zealand ($100,000), Major Events New Zealand ($75,000) and Auckland councils ($150,000).

(Source: stuff.co.nz)