Italy will reportedly decide on its 2024 Olympic bid aspirations later this month, but one report says Rome has already been ruled out, leaving Milan as the choice.
Italian Olympic officials “ruled out Rome as a candidate” to bid because the city is “on the brink of bankruptcy,” according to Agence France-Presse.
Rome mayor Ignazio Marino said earlier this week the state of the capital’s finances would make such a bid virtually impossible.
Roberto Maroni, the president of the Italian region that includes Milan, said “Rome is on the brink of bankruptcy” and that “a city in these financial straits can not be considered a candidate,” according to AFP.
Rome, which hosted the 1960 Summer Olympics, had a proposed bid for the 2020 Olympics withdrawn by the Italian government due to lack of support.
Italy will not have an internal competition between its two cities under consideration, Italian Olympic Committee president Giovanni Malago said. A decision on 2024 bidding will come later in October, according to Gazzetta dello Sport.
Italy last hosted the Olympics in 2006, when Torino had the Winter Games.
The U.S., which has not hosted an Olympics since the 2002 Winter Games, is considering submitting a bid for the 2024 Games but is not expected to make a decision until late 2014.
