TOKYO (Reuters) – SoftBank Group Corp founder and CEO Masayoshi Son on Saturday expressed fresh doubt about Tokyo’s delayed Summer Olympics going ahead during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Currently more than 80% of people want the Olympics to be postponed or cancelled. Who and on what authority is it being forced through?” Son wrote in a Twitter post https://twitter.com/masason/status/1395955033036918785?s=20 in Japanese.
The billionaire last week said he was “afraid” https://www.reuters.com/article/us-olympics-2020-japan-softbank-idUKKBN2CU0ZL of holding the Olympics during the pandemic. Polls consistently show most Japanese people oppose holding the Games as planned.
The Reuters Corporate Survey on Friday showed that some 70% of big Japanese companies also want the Games delayed or cancelled, after the authorities postponed the event in 2020 for a year due to the pandemic.
But a top International Olympic Committee official said on Friday the Games would “absolutely” go ahead even if the capital were still under a state of emergency, given “all of the plans we have in place to protect the safety and security of the athletes and the people of Japan.”
(Reporting by Sam Nussey; Editing by William Mallard)
