Montreal to cut costs; $310m plans

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33442, 25 January 1974, Page 10

Montreal to cut costs; $310m plans

The next Olympic Games will be completely self supporting. This was said yesterday by the man who is helping to organise them, Mr G. O. R. Rousseau, president of the Organising committee for the 1976 Montreal Olympics.

His committee was raising its own funds to cover the cost of facilities and running the Games. “We will spend less than half the amount spent at Munich, but Munich had suffered in the war and the Games were used to build some of the necessary facilities,” he said. “We are lucky to have much of the structure left from Expo.” An existing ice hockey

stadium would be used as the main stadium. Mr Rousseau said that, like Christchurch, Montreal was struggling with the problems , (inflation brought, but it 1 hoped to raise the $3lO million to cover all expenses. 1 The budget allowed $250 million for facilities and $6O million on running the games. The main money-raiser is! a lottery, with tickets at $lO each and a first prize of $1 (million—tax free. Prizes in the lottery are worth $8,175 million, and Mr Rousseau said the first one. started in December, had been a tremendous success. When he left Canada, tickets worth more than $l7 million had been sold and there were only 17,000 (tickets left. “That’s hardly enough for a good day’s sale for us.”