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 Just a quarter of the 16 venues have been completed but
organizers are confident everything will be ready before the opening
ceremony on June 12, 2015.
Given less than three years to prepare for the Games after the
European Olympic Committee awarded the rights to Baku in December
2012, the Azerbaijan capital was always facing a Herculean task.
But with 4,000 people currently working 24 hours a day just on the
68,000-seater new national stadium, organizers say they have no
doubts Baku will meet the deadline.
"I'm incredibly confident," Baku 2015 Chief Operating Officer Simon
Clegg said before a presentation on the city's progress to the
Association of National Olympic Committees (ANOC) on Saturday.
"This is not an issue, I have no concerns at all.
"Let's just say they lay concrete very quickly in Azerbaijan."
Clegg, formerly the British Olympic Association's first chief
executive, said the former Soviet republic was one of the few
countries that had the money and the will to organize a major
multi-sports event at short notice but future hosts would be given
more time.
Although he would not say which cities had indicated they wanted to
stage the 2019 edition, he said the host city would be announced
early next year and would not have to spend as much as oil and
gas-producing Azerbaijan has.
SIGNIFICANT RESOURCES
"We needed a country that had significant resources and also
sufficient vision and motivation for hosting these Games, which
Europe has never had up until now," he said.
"So this is the big-bang moment for the European Games.
"The figure has not been made public but what I can tell you is that
we're spending more on these Games than subsequent organizers will
need to because of the fact no-one knows about this, so we're
spending a lot more on marketing and promotion of the event that
future events will have to."
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Despite the time constraints, Clegg said all the early signs were
positive for the European Games.
Organisers had to turn away 14 different sports that wanted to be
involved after deciding to put a cap of 20 for the first edition.
They have already signed up six major sponsors and are a close to a
deal on a seventh, leaving just one more spot available after
deciding to limit the top-level partnerships to eight.
Organisers have also completed most of their television broadcast
details, not only in Europe, and are in advanced stages of
negotiating with future hosts.
"This is no small undertaking," Clegg said. "We had to go to the
market place to sell commercial sponsorship based upon a concept and
promises.
"We have already sold broadcasting deals outside of Europe and this
is really important for the future of the European Games.
"To be fair, we've had to muscle our way into an already congested
sports program... but there have been some very positive
discussions."
(Editing by John O'Brien)
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