Harvard Olympic Soccer Details Emerge

Hosting first-round 1984 Olympic soccer competition will not cost Harvard a cent, officials said at a press conference yesterday at the Stadium.

"Harvard should not have to be out of pocket in any way at all," said Alan I. Rothenberg, the Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee's commissioner of soccer. Rothenberg refused to give the specific terms of the agreement, but he indicated that the lease grants Harvard a percentage of revenues accrued from tickets and concession sales along with certain guarantees.

"It's certainly not a great amount of money." Associate Director of Athletics Patricia H. Miller said. "But at least we've got things worked out so we are guaranteed to break even."

Since the January 20 announcement that the Stadium would be one of four first-round soccer sites, the Olympic Committee and the University have negotiated most of the details surrounding the staging of the games. Athletes will live at Quincy House and dine on meals prepared by Food Services or private team chefs. The committee will handle security, a major concern for post-1972 Olympics.

"The security problems are large," Rothenberg said, "but they're being addressed. I think we'll do just as good a job here as at any other location."

There will be six games on six consecutive days at each first-round site, with tickets selling for $3, $5 and $10 for each game. Tickets will be available this fall. The first round will begin on July 29, 1984.

The committee chose the Stadium because it is one of few fields in a major metropolitan area satisfying the requirements of the Federation International de Football Association, soccer's governing body. Most stadium fields are not wide enough for soccer, have artificial turf or an inadequate seating capacity to host the games, or host baseball teams with schedules that would conflict with the games.

With the removal of the track and the sodding of the area, the Stadium will be wide enough for soccer. The sodding will start this summer, immediately after the completion of repairs underway on the stands.

A hundred teams around the world are now competing for the 14 remaining slots in the Olympic soccer tournament. The United States as host of the Olympics, and Czechoslavakia, the 1980 Gold Medal winner, automatically receive tournament slots. The teams will be assigned to first-round sites by lottery.