Londoners might have noticed a recent poster campaign showing athletes leaping over famous landmarks such as Tower Bridge and the London Eye.

Explaining why he used this concept to promote London's bid for the 2012 Olympic Games, bid chief executive Keith Mills said: 'We need the help, support and enthusiasm of everyone in the UK. We need them to make a leap of faith, a leap of the imagination and a leap of inspiration.' As UK business people discover more about the facts and the details of the bid there are a number who are somewhat unwilling to make that leap of faith.

Potential benefits

Advocates of London's bid cite many potential benefits to UK business (see Accountancy, August 2003, p32). According to the bid team, thousands of UK companies would benefit as suppliers of goods and services. For instance, UK companies would have the opportunity to bid for contracts to build 5,000 new homes in the athletes' village, a brand new Olympic Park, due to be located in the Lower Lea Valley, an area in dire need of development. Other companies would be required to provide permanent and temporary seating in venues across the capital, ranging from diving in Trafalgar Square to archery at Lords' Cricket Ground. Some 17,000 athletes and officials would need catering and accommodation; 50,000 volunteers would require specially manufactured clothing. This is before considering the logistical and freight services that would have to be involved.

The opportunities simply in terms of new business are significant. The bid team claims that Queensland businesses received 150m worth of contracts as a result of the Olympic Games being held in Sydney. The benefits will not just be confined to London. Football will be one of several sports held around the UK. Training camps are traditionally based outside of the main centre and there will be almost 200 of these. In 2000, the British team spent 1m on their camp in Australia. A PricewaterhouseCoopers report concluded that the Sydney Games generated over 2.5bn in spending by an additional 1.6m visitors between 1997 and 2001. Even once the Games are finished the Lower Lea Valley particularly and London more generally is left with a legacy benefit.

For all these reasons officials are confident that London, if it were to win the bid, would more than make back the 2.375bn it is estimated that holding the Games would cost. Public figures from five times gold medal winner, Sir Stephen Redgrave, to bid chairman, Barbara Cassani, are lining up to make London's case. In the recently released bid brochure, prime minister Tony Blair enthused: 'As well as being a wonderful sporting and cultural festival, the Games would deliver practical benefits for the capital and the country. They would drive the environmentally-friendly regeneration and rejuvenation of East London, give a huge boost to tourism across the UK, and provide thousands of new opportunities for work and volunteering.'

The critics

David Soskin, CEO of Cheapflights.co.uk, is less enthusiastic: 'I can see no advantage. The Olympics will cost billions of pounds and, as usual, it will be the long-suffering British taxpayer, both individual and corporate, who picks up the tab. Costs will overrun, just like the Dome and Scottish parliament building. Worst of all, the Olympics will bring yet more gridlock to an already over-stretched transport system. London-based businesses like Cheapflights.co.uk will be paralysed, as employees, suppliers, and customers struggle to get across the capital.'

Soskin's claim that the bid will lead to tax increases appears largely unfounded. Funding will come primarily from special Olympic lottery games, with the remainder met by a 20 increase in band D London council tax and 250m from the London Development Agency. He is on firmer ground in pointing out that public buildings in the UK tend to overrun on cost.

However, Transport for London is confident that adding an extra 150,000 on to the 8m that already use public transport each day will not lead to the gridlock that Soskin predicts.

Chris Webb is the PR manger for CODA, a financial intelligence consultancy.

Until recently, he has also been a track and field coach. You might expect someone already involved in athletics to be enthusiastic about the prospect of bringing the Olympics to this country, but he is in fact praying that the London bid fails: 'I didn't see any noticeable long-term benefit to any business in Manchester from the Commonwealth Games, apart from Manchester City Football Club, which got a smart new stadium subsidised by the people and businesses of Manchester. I'm amazed by people who think London's tourist industry needs a boost. Have they ever tried booking a hotel there?'

Uphill struggle

It is far from certain that London's bid will succeed. Sir Bob Scott led Manchester's bid for the Commonwealth Games, and Liverpool's for the European City of Culture. He has recently been misquoted as criticising London's bid, and is keen to stress that he wants the capital to win it.

He does though think that the bid team has its work cut out: 'Businesses in Manchester and Liverpool are receiving a massive boost, if only because victorious bids do so much to transform the image of a place.

I fervently hope that London wins, but I think it is facing the toughest group of cities that has ever bid for the Olympics.'

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) will trim the candidates to an official shortlist in May 2004, but the consensus is that the eventual winner will be London, Paris or New York. Sir Bob believes that Paris with its battle-hardened bid team and proven venues will do well in an electoral college that he believes already tends to favour the French.

Although a steep hill to climb, he believes it is possible: 'We need to communicate London's virtue as a world city, the benefit of having English as a world language, and we need to understand how these things work tactically.

You need to get enough solid votes and then become everyone's second choice.'

Go for it, but get it right

An ICM poll of over 3,000 individuals in December 2002 suggested that Soskin and Webb are in the minority, with over 81% backing a London bid.

In any event, the bid is progressing and the debate is turning towards how London can best position itself and how to ensure the maximum benefit should London emerge victorious.

Ed Straw, head of government at PwC, is one of many with advice to offer the bid team: 'They need to remember that the issues that arise during Athens 2004 will have a huge impact on the IOC's decision in 2005, so the bid team probably needs to focus on transport infrastructure. They certainly need to be aware of this rebound factor.'

Judith Rutherford, chief executive of Business-Link for London, argues that we need to avoid the 'Atlanta scenario': 'In 1996, large businesses, mostly not based in Atlanta, derived much of the financial gain from the Games. If London wins, we need to ensure that small businesses are awarded a good share of infrastructure development and service provision contracts.'

The arguments will continue, and there will always be detractors, but, overall, it seems as though business in the UK has made the leap of faith and is getting behind London's bid.