Olympic soccer comes to Birmingham: managing a nonprofit organization's accounting and finance in a public setting

This case is based on the experience of one of the authors as financial director of the Birmingham, Alabama soccer venue site for the 1996 Summer Olympic Games held in Atlanta, GA, USA. Although many of the circumstances surrounding the case are based on actual events, the people, data and scenarios contained in the case are fictional. However, the case is written carefully to create as realistic an environment as possible. As the only member of the Birmingham Soccer Committee with accounting expertise, the financial director is responsible for identifying and addressing issues involving accounting and finance. The primary learning objective for this case is to provide students with experience actively making decisions in an unstructured environment in which they have sole responsibility for accounting and financial issues. When addressing the issues in the case, students are required to use a decision framework based on a comparison of personal principles and goals to the committee's mission and strategy.