Turin faces budget cuts for Games
ROME (AP) – The Turin Olympics are facing a 64-million-euro budget shortfall that could force organizers to make cutbacks for the Winter Games, according to Turin’s La Stampa newspaper. Italy’s draft budget for 2006 doesn’t include the final 40-million-euro allocation to Olympic organizers and scraps a scratch-card lottery game that would have produced an extra 24 million in revenues, La Stampa said. The government decided on Wednesday to put its measures to a parliamentary confidence vote. Officials from the TOROC organizing committee said they were still gathering information and could not immediately confirm La Stampa’s report. The budget worries come less than two months before the opening ceremony for the February 10-26 Games. La Stampa said cuts could affect payments to suppliers and employees, the preparation of some competition sites and the organization of the March 10-19 Paralympics.
