Budapest council backs Olympic 2020 bid

The Budapest city council voted unanimously yesterday to bid to host the 2020 Summer Olympics. The council deems the Puskás Ferenc stadium and its surroundings as the most appropriate venue, but if that is not suitable, it will recommend North Csepel as a potential location, mayor Gábor Demszky announced.

The Hungarian government has until the bid deadline of 2011 to decide whether to support the bid, Demszky said.

Budapest Olympic Movement leader Attila Szalay-Berzeviczy, chairman of the Budapest Stock Exchange, estimated the cost of building related infrastructure at Ft 4,700 billion. Among necessary projects he listed an Olympic village for 16,000 athletes, a media village for 17,000 journalists, a central stadium, four football stadiums, 11 indoor sports arenas, 16 special sports projects, 300km of motorway, 400km of expressway, 61km of city roads, 25km of metro lines and three bridges.

Szalay-Berzeviczy also said that Ft 2,600 billion of the development projects would need to be carried out in Budapest. The city would not pay one fillér of that, but instead hopes to persuade the government to cover 65% of the costs, the EU 33% and private investors 5%.

The above story is just one of more than two dozen published today by Hungary Around the Clock, the most comprehensive source of daily English-language news about Hungary. For a free trial of HATC, click here. Hungarian news sources include Népszabadság; Magyar Hírlap; Világgazdaság; Napi Gazdaság; Magyar Nemzet; Népszava; Kossuth Rádió news and Hungarian television's nightly news broadcast.

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