The IOC has been "advised by a prominent business school to give greater transparency" to a program which is handing out more than $500M million in funding, according to REUTERS. The Olympic Solidarity program "distributes money to help national Olympic Committees around the world fund athlete development and the training of coaches." It has been given $509M to distribute in the '17-20 cycle, compared to $439M for the previous four-year period. On Monday, the Lausanne-based Int'l Institute for Management Development said that the IOC should give "more complete and thorough information on the processes and financial flows from Olympic Solidarity." The institute "suggested setting up a fully-owned subsidiary" to run the program (REUTERS, 7/10).
FULLY OPERATIONAL: Following a presentation from the 2020 Tokyo Games Organizing Committee, the IOC Exec Board confirmed the Ibaraki Kashima Stadium as a venue for the football competition at the next Summer Games. The venue was damaged during the '11 earthquake, but is again fully operational following assistance from FIFA and various stakeholders (IOC).
BACK AGAIN: REUTERS' Karolos Grohmann reported refugees are "likely to compete" at the 2020 Tokyo Games with the IOC "planning another refugee team after its first appearance" at the Rio Games. IOC Dir of Communications Mark Adams said, "We are already discussing a potential refugee team for Tokyo 2020." He added that is was "too early to talk about size of the team given the complex selection process" (REUTERS, 7/9).
