The reason for the spectacular scenery in Baku city centre is because the majority of the expensive and aesthetically pleasing buildings have been funded by the copious amounts of money that Azerbaijan has obtained from oil in the region - a commodity increasingly likened to liquid gold.


Baku features wildly varying architecture ranging from the Old City core to modern buildings that are rising up all over the place.

However, should one venture just slightly outside the enthralling heart of Baku, you quickly come across extreme poverty and poor housing that makes you wonder if you are still in the same city.

Such a fact is not overly surprising given that it was just under 20 years ago that Azerbaijan gained their independence from the Soviet Union in 1991 after being part of the constitutionally socialist state for 61 years.

But it is clear to see that while some in Baku now live in complete luxury, others have so far failed to receive any benefit from Azerbaijan's new wealth.

Such a problem is just one reason why Baku is widely considered as the rank outsider to host the 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

After all, the Azerbaijan capital faces formidable opposition in the form of Doha, Istanbul, Madrid, Rome and Tokyo.

The quintet are all far move developed - at this stage - than Baku and have a pedigree of hosting major competitions.

Doha, one of the few cities that can trump Baku when it comes to generating money from oil, have already hosted top events such as the 2010 IAAF Indoor World Athletics Championships and will be staging the 2022 FIFA World Cup - despite the fact that allegations of corruption linger over their winning bid.

Istanbul have also staged various major events, including the epic 2005 UEFA Champions League Final that saw Liverpool beat AC Milan after going 3-0 behind.

Meanwhile, the central European cities of Madrid and Rome hardly need any endorsement of their sporting credentials as they both regularly host matches in the two of the biggest football leagues on the planet on a weekly basis in La Liga and Serie A respectively.

For their part, Tokyo did a fantastic job with the 1964 Olympics and currently has two major professional baseball clubs (the Yakult Swallows and Yomiuri Giants) that play in the city on an almost weekly basis.

Baku itself has hosted big international sporting events such as the 2005 World Rhythmic Gymnastics Championships.

They are also currently staging the 2011 International Boxing Association (AIBA) World Championships at the Heydar Aliyev Sport Concert Complex but will not be happy after embarrassing delays to the start of the competition were slammed by the international governing body for boxing.


This followed corruption allegations that Azerbaijan has paid for two boxing gold medals at the London 2012 Olympics.

Such errors can be ill afforded in an Olympic bid race with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) watching every move and rival cities ready to capitalise on the smallest of mistakes.

Doha, Istanbul, Madrid, Rome and Tokyo also have the advantage of a solid infrastructure and transport systems meaning that the investment in hosting the 2020 Olympic and Paralympics would not be as great as it would be in Baku.

But rather than look at this as a negative, Baku have turned it into a positive by saying that the Olympics Games should be a sporting competition aimed at leaving a legacy of improving a nation rather than a competition eligible only for the world's elite to host.

It is a compelling argument.

Aghajan Abiyev, the secretary general of the National Olympic Committee of Azerbaijan (NOCA), took time out of his schedule at the 2011 AIBA World Championships to explain exactly that point to me.

"We are very hopeful we can bring the Olympic Games to Baku in 2020," he said.

"We also think we would help the Olympic Movement by staging them here. Azerbaijan is a small country and only recently did we get our independence. This marked the start of our developments in the city and Azerbaijan has gradually developed as a country since then. We are building all the time, day-by-day.

"But our President Ilham Aliyev (who is also head of the NOCA) cares about the fact that there are still some difficult living conditions for people in Azerbaijan. He feels that hosting the Olympics will be a great benefit for them and help the country continue in its development. The Olympics should be not only about great sporting competition but also about helping the area where they are staged and about creating a lasting sporting legacy."

A good point and the President himself has assembled a strong Baku 2020 bid team (headed by Azerbaijani Deputy Prime Minister Yagub Eyubov) to show that the city is taking this very seriously.

Abiyev will also be playing a key role and will be hopeful that Baku can do far better than they did in their bid for 2016 when they failed to make the shortlist to host the competition.

"If the IOC allows our bid for the 2020 Olympics to move forward to the shortlist, we think that Baku and Azerbaijan is very much ready to host the competition," he said.

"There are already over 30 major sporting complexes in Azerbaijan and while development will be needed in some areas, some venues would be ready to host Olympic competition tomorrow."

Well, perhaps not tomorrow.


But in 2015, they will have at least one venue that will rival any of the world's leading sporting complexes as that is the year when the curiously named Baku Olympic Stadium (pictured) will be completed.

The 65,000 stadium features a retractable roof and fulfils FIFA's and UEFA's highest technical recommendations and elite stadium obligations.

FIFA President Sepp Blatter and UEFA President Michel Platini actually joined the Azerbaijan President at the ceremony in June that saw construction get underway.


However, you feel it will take more than one great stadium to convince the IOC the 2020 Games should come to Baku.

But Baku may end up having a surprising ally in France.

This is because whispers suggest that the French capital Paris is going to put forward an Olympic bid for the 2024 Games.

There would be a lot of IOC sympathy for a Paris bid in 2024 for several reasons.

Paris perhaps should have hosted the 2012 Olympic Games before London - inspired by the Bid Committee and now Organising Committee chairman Sebastian Coe - somehow managed to claw back the French favourites to pip them at the post at that legendary IOC Session in Singapore in 2005.

France also pleased the IOC by putting up a bid for the 2018 Winter Olympic via Annecy and, despite the fact that they were crushed in the first round of voting, they made the 2018 race (featuring eventual winners Pyeongchang, as well as Munich) at least an exciting three-horse race rather than a relatively mundane two-city competition.

2024 also represents the centenary of the Paris 1924 Olympics meaning there would be an additional emotional pull to Paris.

I mention this because if the Paris 2024 bid plan starts to become a reality, it would seriously harm the 2020 bids of Madrid, Rome and Istanbul because the IOC know that it would be problematic to award back-to-back Summer Games to neighbouring cities when the Olympics is a global competition.

Similarly, the biggest hurdle of the 2020 bid from Tokyo is the close proximity it has to Pyeongchang, which will stage the Winter Olympics just two years before the 2020 event.

Doha has a different set of potential problems given that the squeaky-clean, anti-corrupt IOC does not particularly want to take their prize event to a city where the word scandal is inescapable.

This leaves Baku and while the city is admittedly on the edge of Europe (and therefore in the same continent as Paris), it is right on the border and geographically far enough away for the IOC to take the Olympics to Paris straight after Baku.

However, there is a lot of speculation here and several huge factors that will need to come into play.

In the meantime, Baku will have to make sure it keeps its own house in order but another big problem for them though is traffic. The roads in Baku are manic during the day and I'm not too sure if Abiyev's plan of building "a lot of our new Olympic venues in the countryside" will quite negate the issue.

However, if London can host the Olympics with their traffic problems, it shouldn't be a problem for Baku. Besides, it can't really be expected that a major metropolitan city has no cars in it.


Nevertheless, Baku remains outsiders with a general feeling that 2020 is still too soon for them.

After my stay here, I'm in agreement with such sentiments.

I feel 2028 might be more realistic, when the infrastructure is improved and Baku gets more experience of staging major events.

But I have no doubt they could put on the 2020 event with the money at their disposal - bearing in mind that they threw $21.67 million (£13.86 million/€15.92 million) at their failed 2016 bid.

So if they can convince the IOC, and several other big factors fall into play; maybe, just maybe...

Tom Degun is a reporter for insidethegames