Pan American Games: this is the forceful letter from Panam Sports to President Petro

“Dear President: Pan American GamesThey are the most important multi-sport event in America; They are the great desire of all athletes, and it is the responsibility of Panam Sports to ensure faithful compliance with the signed contracts, so as to guarantee an event of excellence for the athletes of America (…). After all the breaches of the host city contract and the extensions granted, the Executive Committee of Panam Sports in a session on Tuesday, January 2, 2024 decided to withdraw the headquarters to Barranquilla, Colombia.”

These are the terms of the letter, unknown until today, in which Panama Sportsthe governing body of the Games, responds to the president Gustavo Petro why the country was left without the headquarters of the continental competitions, which must be held in 2027.

The loss of the headquarters generated, at the beginning of the year, a political scandal that has the Minister of SportsAstrid Viviana Rodríguez, with a motion of censure hanging over his head. The same crisis forced President Petro to take charge of the efforts, until now unsuccessful, to try to recover the seat for Barranquilla.

This week, Asunción (Paraguay) and Lima (Peru) made official their intention to organize the Pan American Games in 2027, further complicating the possibilities of the Atlantic capital. The country is awaiting the president's announced trip to Chile, where he hopes to have the support of his counterpart, Gabriel Boricto intercede with Panam Sports, whose president, Neven Ilicis also Chilean.

(You may be interested: Barranquilla will not be able to apply to host the Pan American Games, says the Olympic Committee)

The Foreign Ministry ordered all the country's delegations in America to start a campaign to try to contribute to Colombia's intention – a step not without criticism, since the competition rules for the headquarters do not support this kind of diplomatic lobbying; and the Government trusts that the good offices of Chile, which hosted last year's successful Games, will help the Panam Sports Executive Committee to reverse its decision of January 2.

However, the tone of the letter sent to the Narino Palace Ilic does not give rise to higher expectations. In it, the president of Panam Sports reminds Petro that on April 30, 2021 Barranquilla obtained all the votes to host the XX Pan American Games and that “for the first time these were assigned directly to a city, which responded to recognition for the great work that Colombian athletes, the Colombian Olympic Committee and all the institutions that have the responsibility of making sport a national priority have done.”

According to the letter, known to EL TIEMPO, the contract signed on May 31, 2021 was “seriously breached” despite repeated communications that, Panam Sports complains, did not obtain “no formal response.”

The first of these communications arrived on January 21, 2022, during the government of President Iván Duque, and it requested “compliance with the unfulfilled clauses of the contract, to which there was no response.” On September 13, 2022 (already in the Petro government) a second letter was sent to the national authorities “requesting compliance with the contract in a timely manner, to which no response was received regarding non-compliance with it.” says Panam Sports.

This also happened with the communication of October 20, 2022. Almost 10 months later, with Rodríguez in the Ministry of Sportsthe entity officially notified Colombia that it was giving it 60 days (until October 29, 2023) “to comply with the contract in its entirety” and warned it that if this did not happen, according to “section 76 of the contract it would be empowered to withdraw the headquarters of the XX Pan American Games 2027 to the city of Barranquilla.”

In that letter received three months ago, the Colombian authorities, including the Mindeporte, were formally summoned to comply with seven basic points that, according to Panam Sports, did not register progress. These were the creation of the Organizing Committee as a legal entity under national laws; the payment of the 4 million dollars corresponding to the rights to organize the Games (which was to take place on July 30, 2022 and was tangled with the change of government in Colombia), and the cancellation of another 4 million dollars corresponding to the granting of media rights (which was to be carried out on July 30, 2023 and was also not fulfilled).

(Also read: Colombia's new rival for the 2027 Pan American Games: it's official, Lima is running)

Colombia also did not present to Panam Sports the work schedule to ensure the successful logistics of the Games or the guarantee of its financing (which had to be done through a Conpes document). And the guarantee policy worth 50 million dollars in favor of Panam Sports was not processed nor was the process of “protection of the Panam Sports Marks” advanced.

Ten days before the deadline expired, on October 19 of last year, in the middle of the Chilean Games, Minister Rodríguez, the former mayor of Barranquilla Jaime Pumarejo and the president of the Colombian Olympic Committee, Ciro Solano, met with Panam Sports and requested, and managed, to set new deadlines. On December 30, the first $4 million should have been paid. The second amount owed would be amortized on January 30, 2024. At that meeting in Santiago, the government of President Petro, through Minister Rodríguez, ratified its full commitment to the Games.

And although – Panam Sports reiterates – “it was clearly established in writing that failure to comply with this new and final deadline would mean the immediate withdrawal of the headquarters to the city of Barranquilla”, inexplicably the Colombian Ministry of Sports did not have the funds available. to make the first payment. “As you are aware, what was established in the extension signed and agreed upon between the parties was not fulfilled either,” says the letter addressed to Petro.

What followed was the withdrawal of the headquarters and the scuffle between officials of the current and past administrations over responsibility for non-compliance, which in any case Minister Rodríguez had promised to amend more than two months before the deadline arrived. on December 30.

That did not happen and the possibility of the Games returning to Barranquilla is increasingly remote. The statutes of the Pan American Games prohibit a city that has lost the venue from seeking it again. The Government's strategy aimed to achieve, through diplomatic means, that other interested countries with possibilities abstained and in some way facilitated Panam Sports to reverse its determination.

But that diplomatic strategy is also under discussion. This week, during his visit to Davos, President Petro again went against the government of Dina Boluarte in Peru. Sources close to the bid for the Games assure that the officialization of Lima as a candidate for the 2027 mega-contest is a direct response to the unfriendly statements of the Colombian head of state.

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