Leipzig plans city-center Games
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LEIPZIG, Germany (Reuters) -- Leipzig unveiled plans to stage the Olympics closely around the city center if its scandal-hit bid to host the 2012 Games succeeds.
The east German city, which faces a tough fight from rival bids London, Paris and New York, is a clear outsider to stage the showpiece event.
The campaign has already been hit by the expulsion of several top officials amid allegations over links with the former East German Stasi secret police and financial irregularities.
The German government, however, has backed the bid in the hope of giving the country's deprived former communist east a much-needed lift.
Bid chief Peter Zuehlsdorff said on Friday over 90 percent of the events would be held within a 10 kilometer radius of the city center with heavy security planned including 20,000 police officers and 5,000 other security personnel.
Organizers submitted a budget of 1.85 billion euros ($2.35 billion) to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) for temporary facilities and for running the Games.
Zuehlsdorff said the bid group expected a profit of over 10 million euros from television rights and from money provided by the IOC.
Leipzig, a city of some 500,000 inhabitants that was heavily bombed in World War Two, is counting on its manageable size as an asset in the contest with its much larger rivals.
London and Paris are the favorites among the nine cities which submitted bid details to the IOC.
The winning candidate will be decided by a vote of IOC members in Singapore in July next year.
New York, Madrid, Moscow, Leipzig, Istanbul, Rio de Janeiro and Havana have also submitted bids for the Games. Athens will stage this year's Olympics and Beijing will host the 2008 Games.
Zuehlsdorff rejected media reports which had put building and infrastructure costs as high as 14 billion euros and said they would be much closer to earlier estimates of around 2.6 billion euros.
He said it was too early to provide firm estimates of how much would have to be spent on new stadiums and an Olympic village for athletes and how much funding could be raised from private investors.
"Just to name a figure, I think five billion in eight years would be a sensible investment for the country," he said.
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