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The Gujarat Olympic Planning and Infrastructure Limited (GOLYMPIC) has just issued a tender for the assignment of a PR and communications agency – and namely for spring 2025. GOLYMPIC is officially responsible for India's highly controversial bid for the Olympics, alongside the sport ministries in New Delhi and Gujarat on the political level.
In fact, the government and certain Modigarchs have the say in this Olympic project, which is planned in the state of Gujarat, where Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the family of Mukesh Ambani come from. Ambani is currently the richest Indian and one of the richest people in the world. His wife Nita Ambani was brought into the IOC by the current IOC president Thomas Bach.
The 2023 IOC session, at which Modi made the Olympic promise, took place in Ambani's premises in Ambani Town Mumbai.
GOLYMPIC is already managing considerable public resources in the development of the Olympic project. There are many indications that some of those involved are involved in huge real estate deals.
Jens Weinreich
On the part of the Indian government, Amitbhai Anilchandra Shah, Minister of Home Affairs, is overseeing the highly ambitious Olympic project. Shah is considered the second most powerful man in the country after Modi. Shah is also the chief strategist of Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Another interesting fact in this context: the minister's son, 36-year-old Jay Amitbhai Shah, will take over as president of the scandal-ridden International Cricket Council (ICC) on 1 December. The inclusion of cricket in the 2028 Los Angeles Olympic programme was a kind of gift from the IOC to the Ambanis, who are also very involved in this sport for business, and to India, at the IOC session in Mumbai a year ago. Jay Amitbhai Shah is also Secretary of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) and president of the Asian Cricket Council.
Shah Junior is one of the youngest presidents of a world governing body in Olympic history.
In the 60-page GOLYMPIC tender for a PR and communications agency, point 4 of the so-called Bid Schedule is surprising. It states:
Duration of the assignment: Four (4) months with an option to extend for another Eight (8) months.
Commencement of Work: 1 February 2025.
Why would anyone spend money on an international PR campaign and a communications agency for just four months in spring 2025?
These four months would be February, March, April and May 2025.
And yes, you may remember: February 2025 marks the fourth anniversary of the highly dubious pre-allocation of the 2032 Summer Olympics to Brisbane.
Will history repeat itself?
