German International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach said Wednesday that a one-year delay due to the new Corona virus, due to this summer's Olympic Games in Tokyo, would represent for the International Olympic Committee an additional cost of "several hundreds of millions of dollars".
"We already know that we will have to incur several hundreds of millions of dollars in costs due to the delay," Bach said in a message to the Olympic Movement.
"For this reason, it is also necessary for us to research and review all the services we provide for these deferred games," he added.
He added that the International Olympic Committee "will continue to bear its share of the workload and its share in the costs of these postponed games, according to the terms of the current contract for 2020, which we concluded with our Japanese partners and friends."
The International Olympic Committee, which has reserves of about one billion US dollars (926 million euros), to face the possibility of canceling the Olympic Games, made the historic decision to postpone the games at the end of last March, which was scheduled to open on July 24 and close on August 9.
The new date for the Olympics is between July 23 and August 8, 2021.
On Tuesday, the head of the Japanese Organizing Committee, Yoshiro Mori, announced that the Tokyo Olympics would be canceled if the "Covid-19" pandemic was not brought under control next year.
Bach added that the working group that brings together the International Olympic Committee and various partners, including the Japanese Organizing Committee, has set "management priorities and strategies to ensure the holding and success of these postponed Olympic Games."
He explained that these priorities include "first and foremost creating a safe environment for all participants", adding that the International Olympic Committee continues to rely "on the advice of the World Health Organization on possible amendments to organize mass rallies."
"Nobody knows what the reality of the world will look like after the Coruna virus," he said, noting that the International Olympic Committee, which employs about 600 people, is in the process of reviewing its budget and priorities.
He also called on the German president of the Olympic Movement to "think" about what the social divergence might mean for "our relations with e-sport".
And Bach "strongly encouraged all stakeholders in our world to study how to control the electronic and virtual forms of their sports while respecting the red line when it comes to Olympic values."