Now the London Assembly’s Economy, Culture and Sport Committee has hit out at LOGOC, accusing it of hiding behind legal status as a private company, despite being buoyed by taxpayer money.
In a report, the London Olympics organisers were slated for refusing to provide a breakdown which would indicate whether or not 75% of tickets have been told to Brits, as promised.
There have also been calls for some clear figures detailing how many Olympic tickets have been sold at what price, for each event. Crucially, LOGOC initially promised that 28% of the 8.8 million tickets on sale would sell for £20 or less. However, it is not known whether these cheap tickets will be available for all events or if there will be a surplus supply.
The committee argues that the Sydney Olympic Games organising committee released information about ticketing and says that LOGOC cannot claim data protection as it is the sole provider of tickets.
The report, titled Sold Out?, said: “There are legitimate concerns that the most popular events may have a disproportionate number of the highly-priced tickets, and so far Locog has done very little to dispel these fears.”
The committee chairman, Dee Doocey, pointed to the fact that taxpayers have essentially funded the London 2012 Olympics, saying: “Locog’s legal status should not excuse them from the transparency and openness we expect in other areas of public life.
“It is completely unacceptable that an organisation that only exists because of a huge investment of public money can hide behind its status as a private company to avoid questions it does not like.”
LOGOC has responded saying: “We are committed to providing a full breakdown of ticket sales and believe the best time to do this is once we have completed the final sales process.”
What do you think – are the Olympics a great big taxpayer swindle?
