Perhaps Spain, with far more (EU funded) sports grounds than the UK should be asking why they didnt do better ??

G4S is giving the MOD £2.5 million for the help the troops contributed.

£2.5 divided by 18,200 troops divided by 17 days =£8.08 per man per day

I bet they are billing the tax payer a lot more than that.

Why didnt they take the chance and employ the unemployed for the couple of weeks to do some security - they would have benefited so much - by being given the chance of work for once - maybe the chance of a job at the end if not maybe the future - given themselves a bit of pride back - coz not everyone who is unemployed doesnt want to work xxxxx

Now that is a good bit of thinking.

Now and again Lion - it doesnt happen often and i now need to go and lie down in a very dark room xxxxx

I thought the Olympics would have been a disaster...I was probably believing too many newspapers and reading too much on this forum

I didn't like the opening or the closing sessions, have to agree with Dicks comments.

The real stuff inbetween has been super...great organisation, great sports. Couldn't knock anything even though I am not a sports fan. There were so many side events happening in London too. A lot put on by other countries. I was in London last week and there was such a feel good factor.

They tried that didn't they? But they used G4S to recruit them!

Opps sorry i didnt know that - oh well - better luck next time then eh xxxxx

They are not giving it to the MOD they are giving it to a charity.

They are still going to have to pay for the entire cost of the troops which will come out of their contract payments. They are set to lose up to £50 million on the deal and I doubt they will get the Rio contract which they might otherwise have got.

Not just the Rio contract either, its pretty much ruled them out of any future bids for major government contracts and I very much doubt it will make them that appealing for any foreign contracts either. Hopefully this will have a more lasting impact.

Firstly G4S were in denial from the day they applied for the contract, even more so when they won it :eek

All of their staff were supposed to be SIA trained and tested i.a.w. current legislation - there were never enough traiing slots available to have met the G4S requirements.
Many if not all also had to be CRB checked - same as above.
Such training, testing and checking have a cost implication - that all became obscured in the massive profits G4S felt they were going to make out of this contract. They would however poach people who already had the certification so there would be no cost.

Yes, a nice idea for employing the unemployed, but as stated above not financially viable, especially if people started to show up as having failed the CRB.
During my time working with the unemployed I assisted a guy to start up his own manned security business, get all his certification, employ a few guys. He is really successful.

A year or so ago The City of Westminster Council were found to have "taken a chance" on traffic wardens - the department had a majority of failed asylum seekers and the takings were down from the parking meters.

G4S will still want their bonus, £45m isnt it ?, when that should be paid to cover the salary of soldiers who are being paid approx £19k per annum to cover for their greed. Although they have "donated" £2.5m to cover for the military support they have had !!

Thanks chuck - i remember all the cockups they used to do when they did the prisons (dont know if they still do) - a guy on the next pitch to us on the caravan site used to work for them - poor guy we used to take the piss out of him religiously lol - especially if he had some ruffions in his van we'd ask him if they were escaped inmates - not funny i know - but im kind of warped that way lol xxxxx

Strange and a little sad, to watch news reports from the Olympic Park today and see it almost deserted and that happy throng of ppl. which had become the everyday norm, all disappeared.

As I said in my last post, which clearly you couldn't have read, the payment has nothing to do with the cost of the troops - they have already been told that the cost will be deducted from their contract.


The £2.5m donation will go towards welfare amenities including sports equipment and to sports associations which have backed serving athletes, including rowing gold medallists Captain Heather Stanning and Lieutenant Pete Reed.

I see that Russian "lady" shot putter who looked like a fella has failed her or his tests and had the gold medal withdrawn.

Something's never change.

Probably well on the way to Moscow by now.
Wonder if they'll get the medal back before its melted down or put in a pawnshop.