Indonesia keeps up hopes of hosting 2036 Olympics, as president-elect Prabowo meets IOC president in Paris

JAKARTA: Indonesia reiterated its interest in hosting the 2036 Summer Olympics as president-elect Prabowo Subianto met International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach in Paris on Sunday (Jul 28). 
Accompanying Mr Prabowo was State-Owned Enterprises Minister Erick Thohir, who said Mr Prabowo’s ambition was for Indonesia to become a venue for world-class events. 
“We conveyed Indonesia’s potential to host international sporting events in the future, including the Olympics,” Mr Erick said on Instagram on Sunday.
He also posted a photo of himself, Youth and Sports Minister Dito Ariotedjo and Indonesia’s National Olympic Committee (NOC) chairman Raja Sapta Oktohari in the meeting with Mr Prabowo and Mr Bach on the sidelines of the 2024 Paris Olympics. 
The Paris games began on Jul 26 and will end on Aug 11. Indonesia has 29 athletes competing in 12 sports this year.
Other countries that have expressed interest in hosting the 2036 Olympics are Egypt, Qatar, Turkey and India. According to the IOC’s website, the host is expected to be elected after 2025. Los Angeles will host the Games in 2028, while Brisbane will host it in 2032.
Mr Erick highlighted Indonesia’s track record in hosting major events such as the World Superbike and MotoGP in Mandalika, the 2018 Asian Games in Jakarta and Palembang, the 2022 ASEAN Para Games in Solo, the 2023 U-17 World Cup in Jakarta and the 2023 FIBA Basketball World Cup in Jakarta.
“Mr Prabowo’s passion for sports drives his vision for Indonesia to host global events again,” Mr Erick said.  
Mr Prabowo will take over as president in October from Mr Joko Widodo, who expressed Indonesia’s aspiration to host the Olympics in November 2022 during the G20 Summit in Bali. 
At the time, Mr Widodo expressed readiness for his country to host the 2036 Olympics in the new capital Nusantara, which is being developed to replace Jakarta as the country’s administrative capital and is slated to be fully completed in 2045.
After the 2022 G20 Summit, the IOC confirmed Indonesia’s inclusion in the continuous dialogue phase of the bid process, reported GamesBids.com, an independent site with information about the Olympics bid process. 
As part of this phase, an Indonesian delegation with observer status would visit the Paris Games, and monitor preparations by the Los Angeles 2028 organising committee, GamesBids.com reported.
According to the IOC’s website, the continuous dialogue phase is flexible and does not require any financial commitment, written submission or other legal or financial guarantees. 
The IOC conducts a feasibility study to assess the state of progress of a project, help the interested party make improvements, and assist the IOC’s executive board with its strategic decision-making. 
Indonesia is also keen on hosting the 2030 Youth Olympics, NOC chairman Raja told CNA on Monday. “We are chasing the 2036 Olympics but the priority today is the 2030 Youth Olympics, which is closer,” he said.
Countries that are keen to host the 2030 Youth Olympics include Thailand, India and Mexico.
Besides the IOC’s Mr Bach, Mr Prabowo and Mr Erick – who is chairman of the Indonesian Football Association (PSSI) – also held discussions with international football governing body FIFA’s president Gianni Infantino. 
The talks focused on enhancing soccer collaboration and Mr Infantino praised Indonesia’s success in hosting the U-17 World Cup and acknowledged the establishment of FIFA’s new regional office in Jakarta.
“We discussed FIFA’s fantastic working relationship with Indonesia and @pssi and the fantastic progress that has been made by his beautiful country in recent times. We also talked about leveraging football’s popularity among the youth population,” Mr Infantino stated in his Instagram post on Sunday. 
“Indonesia was a fantastic host of the FIFA U-17 World Cup last year and everyone who visited, including myself, was struck by the warmth and hospitality. It was also clear that Indonesians live and breathe football,” he added.  
Although Indonesia successfully hosted the U-17 World Cup in November and December 2023, it lost hosting rights to the U-20 World Cup in March last year following protests by Islamic groups and opposition from two governors to Israel’s participation in the tournament.
Netizens who reacted to Mr Prabowo’s and Mr Erick’s latest social media posts from Paris anticipated the issue cropping up again should Indonesia host the Olympics.
“How can Indonesia host the Olympics … because Israel will definitely participate in it … It will be like the last World Cup again,” one of them commented. 
The cost of hosting the Olympics is another consideration. The budget for Paris 2024, according to official sources, is estimated at US$4.38 billion, equivalent to approximately 71.21 trillion rupiah.
Projections by other parties like the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), a United States-based think tank, however, have pegged the cost at US$8.7 billion or 141.8 trillion rupiah. 
The think tank also cautioned that the increasing cost of hosting the Olympics is not matched by revenue growth. For instance, the 2008 Beijing Olympics generated US$3.6 billion in revenue, while the IOC recorded the cost of organising it as US$40 billion.
Most of the revenue generated does not benefit the host nation, according to the CFR. The IOC retains more than half of the television rights revenue, which is often the largest financial source of the Games.
“The costs of hosting the Olympics have skyrocketed, while the economic benefits are far from clear,” stated CFR in its research paper titled “The Economics of Hosting the Olympic Games”.