Issues relating to entry visas and inflated ticket prices for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympic Games dominated a progress report delivered by American organizers to the IOC (International Olympic Committee) this Tuesday (3).
Several IOC members, including the president of the International Equestrian Federation, Ingmar De Vos, raised the issue of entry visas for hundreds of thousands of athletes, their families, officials, press and fans in the United States, questioning the organizers of the Los Angeles Games about the possibility of simplifying the process.
Dagmawit Girmay Berhane, an IOC member from Ethiopia, said organizers must ensure that Olympic qualifying tournaments held in the United States over the next two years also allow access to all eligible athletes.
“We have been working closely with the (U.S.) Department of State to develop a visa system that allows athletes to access a visa system specifically designed for them,” said Gene Sykes, president of the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee.
He added that there is ongoing and close cooperation with US authorities to make the process as easy as possible.
This is not the first time that IOC members have raised visa issues with Games organizers, with the White House having already established a task force to deal with the issue.
Last year, the President of the United States, Donald Trump, banned citizens of different nationalities from entering the country.
The Olympic Games could attract hundreds of thousands of visitors from around the world to the 16-day event, with more than 200 countries participating and more than 10,500 athletes competing.
Sykes said this year’s football World Cup would serve as a test for visas, albeit on a smaller scale, with just 48 nations taking part in the tournament.
“The FIFA World Cup is also happening this summer, so this whole process of welcoming visitors to the United States is being tested,” Sykes said.
Ticket prices
IOC members also highlighted ticket prices for the Los Angeles Games, saying they were considerably more expensive than those for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.
“When paying for the Games with private funds, we have only two sources of revenue: sponsorships and tickets. Our ticket prices are, on average, 17% higher than those in Paris,” Casey Wasserman, head of the Los Angeles Games, told the IOC.
“To be fair, the economic opportunity and the four-year difference (from Paris) could have allowed us to charge much more than that. So I understand that some tickets are expensive,” Wasserman said.
The Los Angeles Games’ financial model does not rely on any federal contributions, unlike most Olympics held in other countries, meaning organizers need to maximize revenue.
Wasserman, who apologized last week for communicating with convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell more than 20 years ago following the publication of a series of personal emails between the two, was spared any questions on that issue.
New documents relating to the late financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, Maxwell’s ex-boyfriend, released by the US Department of Justice on Friday, included flirtatious email exchanges between Wasserman, who was married at the time, and Maxwell dating back to 2003.
