Team New Zealand has been the great winner of the America’s Cup of Barcelona sailing. Better said, he was the sporting winner of the competition. Amid the triumphalist speeches of the City Council and forecasts of supposedly inflated audiences by the organization, the palpable reality is that the test has not connected with the city. And this Tuesday it was confirmed that the event will not repeat in Barcelonaas had been speculated.
The consistory carries out a balance “extraordinarily positive” and has assured that it has met “expectations.” “We had the goals of international recognition, reconnection of the city with the sea and promotion of the blue economy,” says Jordi Valls, fourth deputy mayor. In an interview on TV3, he assured that some 2.5 million people have seen the competition in the nearly two months, without assessing the economic impactexpected at more than 1,200 million.
Reports and audits
However, he detailed that a report has been commissioned from the University of Barcelona, which will be added to the mandatory audits already planned. It is being prepared by the Bosch Gimpera Foundation, to which it was awarded for an amount of 134,310 euros. The administrations, as a whole, have contributed 54 million euros with VAT included, of which the City Council has contributed 10. Asked about the 10 million promised as a social return for the Barceloneta neighborhood following a request from ERC, he said that the investment “has mostly been made.”
This same Tuesday, the Councilor for Economy and Finance added that the city has transformed the Copa América and that it is “the best edition ever held.” But the truth is that heCitizens have not connected with the eventor perhaps he was not prepared for this to be the case. If we look at visitors, it is true that it has surpassed the last editions, but the images of few fans following it in the race village or the fan zones They perceive themselves to be poor with respect to the hustle and bustle generated.
No return and rising house prices
And the expectations that were created were probably too high, even putting the Copa América in the same sentence with the Barcelona Games 92. Positively, residents have commented through various media that the effects on traffic, mobility and their daily lives have not been as important as could be anticipated. On the contrary, many sectors of the city have questioned the social and economic return, which has also caused a increase in housing prices and access problems to Barceloneta.
Bloated impact figures
A month ago now, the municipal plenary session rejected the external audit proposed by Barcelona en Comú that asked to “review” the data on the economic impact. The text also proposed evaluating “the correct execution” of the commitments acquired in the agreement signed in 2022. The initiative came after the media published that the sporting event had falsified its audience and economic impact figures in order to access to the cataloging of public interest event.
And the organizers had defended that it was the third most watched sporting event in the world, a statement that seems misleading. The Direct published that the Visitor and spectator numbers were bloated to justify the supposed economic return of the event. For example, they count as visitors all the people who pass by the race village or the fan zoneseven if they are not staying to watch the races, but rather are passing through to another place.
Always according The Directthe television audience has also swelled, counting not only the people who watch the races live through different media, but also all the viewers of other programs or news that talk about them. These have been used to produce reports that have validated supposed forecasts of income from visitors to the Catalan capital, their spending and even tax benefits for the organizers and participants in the regattas.
Complaint to the Anti-Fraud Office
The platform No to the Copa América thus considered a “fraud” and a “scam” the forecast reports on visitor attendance at the sailing regattas in Barcelona. For this reason, it has filed a complaint with the Anti-Frau Office to investigate the public resources allocated to the event. The complainants demand that “it be made clean” and the “real accounts” of the sports event be made public.
In addition, he has contacted different parliamentary groups to try to also open an investigation in the Catalan Audit Office. In addition, the platform also responded to Ada Colau, whom it considers “co-responsible” for holding the competition, recalling that when it was agreed to host the regattas in the city she was the mayor. They have admitted that time has shown that they were “wrong” with the Copa América: “It is better to recognize the mistake.”
Neighborhood protests against the Copa América
Barcelona City Council denies that there has been “great neighborhood opposition” to the Copa América. If it is true that there have been no actions that have interrupted the normal dispute of the competition, they have been held before and during several protests by the people of Barcelona. The most notable was the one about ten days ago, which brought together 2,000 people according to the Urban Police and 6,000 according to the organizers.
The march covered part of Barcelona’s seafront, from the Plaza de Correos to the viewpoint of the regatta course, at the end of Marina Street. Called by No to the Copa América, the participants criticized the public investment in the event, the mass tourism and claimed that Barcelona “is not for sale.” At the beginning of September, more than 200 people gathered on Somorrostro beach also to protest, in a fun and festive day.
He will not repeat in Barcelona
Although everything indicated that it would be like this, the Copa América will not repeat in Barcelona in the next edition. The winner of the title, in this case New Zealand, has the power to decide where to defend the titleand the organizers were satisfied. But this Tuesday, the deputy mayor, Jordi Valls, confirmed that the council has already informed the organizers that they have no intention of hosting the event again.
The municipal official indicated that they do not make sense of it and that it was always presented as a “one-off” event for 2024. He added that the “disconnection” with the organizers has been “amicable”, and he believes that both parties have met their objectives. He defended that the legacy of the Copa América scheduled between 2021 and 2024 cannot contribute much more if it is extended until 2026, and that The Catalan capital has other events planned.
The platform No to the Copa América has celebrated the decision: “We are very happy and we see a neighborhood and popular victory. We will continue to call for an independent and transparent audit.” The newspaper The World has published that Valencia is running to take over Barcelona’s baton and recover an event that it already organized in 2007 and 2010. The city had to pay six million of the debt accumulated in the last edition.
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