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Dispatches misses the point in London Marathon story
Unsurprisingly organisers of the London Marathon are outraged by the recent Dispatches programme.
Broadcast only days before the key date in their year Channel 4’s undercover investigation ‘lifted the lid’ on how much it costs to stage the marathon, and how much of the money generated reaches charities.
The show’s conclusion – that of £17.8m received last year, only £4.5m was given to the London Marathon Charitable Trust and therefore made its way to good causes – has been described by Marathon organisers as breathtakingly ignorant and also poorly evidenced.
Regardless of the quality of the investigative journalism, didn’t anyone else think that the programme entirely missed the point?
The money that is raised each year thanks to the London Marathon is not £17.8m, nor is it the percentage of revenue from entry fees and advertising that the organisers put into a charitable trust.
The money that is raised each year is the huge sum donated in sponsorship by individual runners, their friends and families.
Compared to this even the entire £17.8m of revenue earned by London Marathon Ltd pales into insignificance. In 2008 alone almost £47m was raised by runners.
It is these individuals who, at the same time as they train for a gruelling test of physical endurance, raise thousands for charities each year.
To undermine their efforts and motivation at such a critical stage of their preparations seems totally unfair.
The target of the programme may have been the high earning employees of London Marathon Ltd but the only people it actually harmed were the runners and the charities they are supporting.
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Mr T
18 Apr 2010
Untrue! As someone who has run many marathons for charities(never the London one - I have never gotten a place!) and currently works for a charity buying these so-called "gold bond" places, the programme tried to bring to our attention the monopolistic environment that this particular "charity" operates in. The organisers do not negotiate; nor do they publish any fiscal information. The funds the good-intentioned marathon runners are able to raise would still be raised without the extortionist prices that charities have to pay to secure a place. Bravo Channel 4!
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