Sanofi new sponsor of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games

After Orange, EDF, BPCE, the pharmacy giant joined the ranks of the largest contributors to the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games, the organizers and the company announced on Tuesday July 13 in a joint press release. Sanofi is added to the list of these so-called “premium” sponsors who each spend around one hundred million euros within the framework of such a partnership.

The arrival of this new sponsor raises to 600 million, of the 1.1 billion euros expected, sponsorship revenues, said the organizing committee of the Paris 2024 Olympics (Cojo), which must announce a new partner by the weekend. “I am happy that a leading French company like Sanofi is joining the Paris 2024 adventure”, said Tony Estanguet, president of the organizing committee, quoted by the press release. “We share the same values ​​of requirement, creativity and sharing, and the same desire to be useful”, he added.

“Paris 2024 represents a great opportunity to unite our employees around values ​​shared with the Olympism such as inclusion and diversity, openness to the world but also courage, will and excellence”, said Paul Hudson, chief executive of Sanofi, also quoted in the statement.

Very criticized for the delay of its vaccine against Covid-19, but also for nearly 400 job cuts in research, according to the unions, the Sanofi laboratory made a profit of 12.3 billion euros in 2020. End June, he announced that he would invest two billion euros within five years in research and development on messenger RNA, to take the turn of this innovative technology at the origin of the first vaccines against Covid -19.

3.9 billion euros budget

Last week, Paris 2024 announced a partnership with the audit and consulting firm PwC France. The organizing committee has a budget of 3.9 billion euros, which is based on three sources: the contribution of the IOC (International Olympic Committee), ticket revenues and sponsorship.

In a summary published at the end of June, addressed to the Prime Minister, the Court of Auditors asked the organizers of the Olympic Games to work on “Expenditure resizing scenarios” with regard to revenue in order to ensure a balanced budget. Regarding the Cojo, the Court of Auditors explained that it “There are uncertainties about the level of revenue”, despite a surplus paid by the IOC that “The latter must formalize”. “The target of 1.1 billion euros for domestic partnerships has only been reached at the start of 2021 by 46%”, explained the Court.

Read also JO 2024: the Court of Auditors points to “risk of additional costs”

At the end of March, Tony Estanguet assured senators that there was “No warning signal” on this theme. “We have secured 53% of the target at the end of 2020”, he said. “Our goal is to secure two-thirds of income by the end of 2021”, he added.

Read also Olympic Games: the new map of Paris 2024 venues unveiled

The World with AFP