Tokyo (AFP)

Almost two thirds (65%) of the partners of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, postponed for a year due to the coronavirus, are not certain to maintain their commitments, according to a survey by the Japanese public television channel NHK.

Some partners have expressed concern about the consequences for their promotional operations during the Games, whose sail will be reduced, given the risk of spreading the Covid-19 and the rising costs for the organizers, according to the NHK.

"We are looking for (...) ways to simplify the organization of the Games, to see how we can reduce the complexity of the Games" and their cost, in particular IOC President Thomas Bach said on Wednesday in an interview with AFP, without however mentioning a possible closed session.

Sponsors also fear outright cancellation of the Tokyo Olympics, with organizers emphasizing that 2021 is the "last option" to hold them.

Many of them also explained that they had not yet made their decision because the renegotiation of their contracts with the organizers has not yet started.

Toshiro Muto, the managing director of the Tokyo 2020 organizing committee, confirmed at a press conference on Friday that these renegotiations could not be carried out because Japan had entered a state of emergency at Covid-19 from early April, shortly after the decision to postpone the Games.

No one currently can "100%" guarantee that the Games will be held in 2021, but the organizing committee is "determined" that they will take place "in one way or another", a he tried to reassure.

- 80% reserved sites -

Muto also said that 80% of the sites planned for the Tokyo Olympics have already been successfully reserved for the summer of 2021, and that negotiations are continuing for the others, notably the Olympic village site and the media center. .

The Japanese organizers have not given an estimate of the additional costs associated with postponing the event for one year. The IOC for its part announced in mid-May that it had released $ 800 million to deal with the coronavirus crisis.

The last estimated budget of the Games, published at the end of December last by the organizers, therefore before the pandemic and the decision to postpone it, was 1,350 billion yen (more than 11 billion euros) for the Japanese part.

However, the Japanese state invested almost as much between the allocation of the Games in Tokyo in 2013 and the 2018/19 fiscal year, had estimated last year the Japanese equivalent of the Court of Auditors, without this commitment being included in the budget. official.

Many large Japanese companies are partners of the Tokyo Olympics and expected to put 348 billion yen on the table (nearly 3 billion euros), almost half of the expected revenue from the event.

Furthermore, this amount does not include the participations of Toyota, Panasonic and Bridgestone, which are IOC world partners on several Olympiads.

Over two-thirds of NHK survey respondents (68%) noted that the coronavirus crisis had also affected their own financial situation.

The survey was conducted with 78 sponsors, of which 57 responded.

© 2020 AFP