Manchester gives back £9m bonus
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Your support makes all the difference.The success of this summer's Commonwealth Games in Manchester has allowed £9m to be returned to the event's backers, with a further £4m set aside for the redevelopment of Manchester City's new stadium.
The 17-sport, 72-nation event surpassed expectations when it was held in July and August, and a Manchester City Council report, to be discussed by the council's executive tomorrow, says the council will gain by £3m and the Government by £2m. Sport England will also benefit, by £4m.
"We managed to secure more sponsors for the Games than we envisaged," the chief executive of the organising committee, Frances Done, said. "We exceeded our income target by £4m. The figure of £477m as the total cost of the Games is a bit over the top – some people tend not to realise that the Games can't be run without public funding."
The council wants the remainder of the profits to be used to fund the conversion of the Games stadium for use by Manchester City. Around £170m was spent on new venues for the event, and officials have said that 90 per cent of the tickets were sold.
Done added: "The city now has superb sporting facilities and the impact it has had on the image of Manchester and the North-west has been huge. None of this could have been done without the support of the British public – they were the ones who bought 900,000 tickets."
Done was confident the success of the Games could only give added impetus to an Olympic bid. "I don't think there is any doubt that what we have done logistically – getting the venues right, getting the village right, getting the sport right – has shown it can be done," she added. "The Olympics is a very different order, it's much bigger but you have to do the same things and this, the success of the Commonwealth Games, demonstrates the UK can do this."
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