ROME: Irresponsible, unsustainable and unaffordable.

Rome’s new mayor, Virginia Raggi, pulled the plug on the city’s bid to host the 2024 Olympics, saying staging the summer games would bury the Italian capital under mountains of debt and tonnes of cement.

The decision represents a blow to the International Olympic Com­mittee, which has already seen Boston and Hamburg abandon their 2024 bids, and is struggling to convince potential host cities that it is worth putting on the sporting extravaganza.

Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi had championed Rome’s challenge, but he needed the backing of the city council to press ahead, while Giovanni Malago, president of Italy’s Olympic Committee (CONI), said last week the organisation would abandon its bid to host the Games in the event Raggi said no.

Raggi’s decision means only Paris, Los Angeles and Budapest are left in the running to stage the 2024 games.

In an emphatic speech in front of bid supporters, opposition and media in Rome, the mayor was unequivocal.

“This city is unlivable,” Raggi, whose anti-establishment 5-Star Movement took power for the first time in Rome after a landslide victory in local elections in June, said in a news conference at city hall atop ancient Capitoline Hill.

“We need to focus on that. We want to upgrade the services, give back to citizens a city that is as worthy as any other European capital.

“We are effectively asking the people of Rome and of Italy to shoulder the debts [accrued by hosting the Games]. We just don’t support it.

“This is our position: it would be irresponsible for us to support this candidacy.

“We have nothing against the Olympics and sport. Sport was an integral part of our electoral campaign, but we don’t want sport to be an excuse for more rivers of cement in the city. We won’t allow that.

“We have a much more ambitious project for Rome than the one for the 2024 Games.”

Raggi’s rejection comes after then-Premier Mario Monti stopped Rome’s plans to bid for the 2020 Olympics because of financial concerns.

Rome’s bid team reacted furiously, saying the decision had been taken for “ideological, political and demagogic” reasons which would deprive the city of investments worth up to $1.7 billion and the creation of nearly 200,000 jobs.

“We are disappointed that a new political force is unwilling to accept the challenge of modernisation,” it said in a statement, adding that the decision represented “a severe blow to Italy’s credibility worldwide”.

Boston pulled out of the race over financial concerns and the residents of Hamburg voted against a bid in a referendum. The International Olympic Committee will decide on the host city in September 2017.

Published in Dawn, September 23rd, 2016