Cleveland’s Gay Games Drama: Original Organizers Being Booted From Event?

There’s so much drama surrounding the 2014 Gay Games in Cleveland that I can barely keep up, but the cheating scandal alleged by losing host cities Boston and D.C. is blowin’ up.

While it’s still expected that the Gay Games will be in Cleveland in four years, it’s up for debate who’s going to be organizing it. And paying for it.

Backers of the Cleveland Synergy Foundation took credit for securing Cleveland as 2014′s host city, a decision the Federation of Gay Games made in September.

Now the City of Cleveland has terminated its relationship with Cleveland Synergy and is halting all payments — the very sort Synergy showed off as proof of financial stability when convincing the Federation’s board. That’s a far cry from when Cleveland City Councilman Joe Cimperman went to Cologne with Synergy to lobby the organization to bring the games to his city.

So who’s going to run the Gay Games in Cleveland now? It looks like the Greater Cleveland Sports Commission might take over; Cimperman met with the Commission about the possibility. Which leaves Michael Readinger, president of Cleveland Synergy, fuming, since it’s his camp that, perhaps rightfully so, put in all the work to get the Gay Games in the first place.

Still unanswered, however, is the 800-pound question: What changed so drastically that the city can no longer trust the event to its original sponsors? You almost certainly have better answers than I.