UK firm to net Games cash

THE question of who profits from major sporting events has arisen again with arrangements for the 16th Commonwealth Games in Malaysia from 11-21 September coming under the spotlight.

Observers in Kuala Lumpur, where most of the competition is due to take place, have raised eyebrows at the discovery that a significant portion of the money flowing into the organising committee, Sukom 98 Berhad, for hotel accommodation will be paid to Manchester-based Byrom Consultants.

Figures offered by Tunku Maziah Mukhtar, Sukom's director of communications, suggest that a total of 100,000 beds could be occupied on a nightly basis at more than 70 hotels in Kuala Lumpur, nearby Selangor, and on the island of Langkawi throughout the Games.

Based on Ms Mukhtar's own calculation that the average price of a hotel bed could be double the normal rate - pounds 60 per night (higher for four or five star hotels) - it is likely total revenue over the fortnight could top pounds 70m.

The hotels will keep half of this pounds 70m. The remaining pounds 35m will go to the Sukom Accommodation Bureau (SAB), a local company jointly owned by the Malaysian government and its Olympic Council. A number of the country's prominent politicians are on its organising committee.

Sukom in turn will hand over as much as pounds 25m it receives to a second Malaysian company, Seamos Marketing. Seamos Marketing is partly owned by Noni Mahmood, the sister-in-law of foreign minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, and partly owned by Byrom Consultants.

Ms Mukhtar explained Seamos Marketing's role: "We have little experience of staging an event on this scale. Byrom handled the central reservations for both the 1994 World Cup in the US and the 1997 Ryder Cup in Spain; it is being paid for expertise which we do not have."

One of Byrom's four directors, Mexican-born Jaime Byrom, was aware of the political sensitivities involved, especially since Malaysia's Ringgit collapsed against the dollar during the Asian financial crisis. He said: "Even though all the original rates for pre-booked accommodation were set in US dollars, the devaluation of the Ringgit last year means that local prices at a lot of hotels will have to be scaled down."

He explained Byrom's role at international sporting events: "We become an integral part of the organising committee for each event with which we work. If tour operators contact the organising committee for accommodation they are always referred to us. We also provide flexibility so that people booking through us don't have to commit themselves for a precise number of nights."