No compensation money paid Games chairman

Press, 15 October 1986, Page 56

No compensation money paid Games chairman

NZPA-AP Edinburgh A £2.7 million ($7.6 million) compensation bill, sent to the 32 countries that staged an antiapartheid boycott of this summer’s Commonwealth Games at Edinburgh, remained totally unpaid, said the Games chairman, Mr Robert Maxwell.

. The newspaper publisher said the Commonwealth Games Company, which was left with a £4 million ($11.3 million) debt after the competition ended in August, had yet to receive its first payment from the boycotting countries, although “one or two” had indicated they would send money.

More than half the 58 nations due to attend the Games stayed away as a protest at the British Government’s refusal to impose economic sanctions on South Africa. Mr Maxwell said the projected budget deficit had been cut $12.1 million to $9.9 million. “We have a few more days to complete our fund-raising. If we complete it, everybody will be paid. If not, we will put the company into liquidation,” the publisher said. Meanwhile, Brisbane’s bid for the 1992 Olympics has suffered an attack of the gremlins. The official display in the Palais de Beaulieu at

Lausanne in Switzerland opened only after some mishaps and anxious moments. A giant screen sent from Brisbane arrived in Lausanne, but something funny happened to it on the way to the Palais. It did not turn up. Then an electrician working on an adjoining display for Birmingham’s bid accidentally blacked out part of the Brisbane display. Finally a novel idea of having 1.0. C. delegates step onto a floating map of Australia had to be scrapped because the continent kept floating away in its water container.

Brisbane is one of six cities bidding to host the 1992 Olympic Games. Ninety-two 1.0. C. delegates will vote on Friday

from a field which also includes Birmingham, Amsterdam, Paris, Belgrade and the favourite, Barcelona.