Tokyo 2020 furious with IOC's comment on Olympic cost

Organisers of the Tokyo Games are angry at the unilateral comment from the International Olympic Committee (IOC) that Japan will pay the additional cost for the postponed Tokyo Games.

In a Q&A post on its website, the IOC said, "Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe agreed that Japan will continue to cover the costs it would have done under the terms of the existing agreement for 2020, and the IOC will continue to be responsible for its share of the costs, reports Xinhua news agency.

"For the IOC, it is already clear that this amounts to several hundred millions of dollars of additional costs."

Tokyo 2020 spokesman Masa Takaya told reporters at an online briefing, "We think it is not appropriate for the PM's name to be quoted in this manner." He said that Tokyo 2020 had sent an email to the IOC to request the IOC to remove the comment from their website.

"We are requesting the IOC team that the name of the Prime Minister should not be quoted and the website should not express comments beyond what we agreed," he said.

"We haven't received any response," he said.

He said that during the teleconference on March 24 between the Prime Minister and IOC President Thomas Bach, the issue about who should pay the cost was not talked about.

Takaya admitted that although Tokyo 2020 is looking to host the Games in the summer of 2021, no one can predict "accurately" when the pandemic will end.

"Tokyo 2020, the IOC and relevant organisations will keep assessing the common issue," he said.