The bill for moving the Olympics and the Paralympics could run into billions of pounds. A sports lawyer has warned there will be severe financial ramifications following the decision to switch to the summer of 2021.
An estimated £10bn has been spent staging the 2020 Games so far.
Simon Leaf, managing associate of Mishcon de Reya, told SunSport: “This is a major headache for everyone in the Olympic movement and Team GB.
When you add together all the impact on the tourism industry, preparing the venues, and everything else, it wouldn’t surprise me if it ran up to tens if not hundreds of millions of pounds.
“There are so many parties involved. Broadcasters in the US would have sold adverts and schedules for the Olympics. Instead of the 100 metres final — that slot might have to be a repeat of Dallas now.
“The Japanese authorities have been the most reluctant to move this. One would expect the agreement they have with the IOC is in the IOC’s favour.
“You’d expect agreements to have clauses to cover unexpected circumstances like a pandemic. But in this incident, I’d expect it to be heavily weighted towards the IOC.
“It’s likely the host city has to bear the brunt of hosting the Games at another date. There are agreements with stadium operators and owners for 2020. They could incur more costs to make sure they are available for 2021.”